The Lethological Gourmet

Monday Recipe - Hummus

2009-08-10T15:54:00.002-04:00

I recently realized that I needed to add a late morning snack on days I go to the gym. Because feeling like your hands are cement blocks flung around on twigs just isn't ideal. So, I glanced around my kitchen to figure out what I could add to my diet that would give me energy through the extra hour or two before I had lunch, but not break the calorie bank. I settled on hummus with pita (flax, oat brand and whole wheat flour pita bread, to be exact, and it's quite yummy despite its wheat-germ smoothie sounding roots).

Za'atar Hummus

1 large can of chickpeas (I don't remember the size, I think it's 800 some-odd grams)
1/4 C olive oil
Lemon juice to taste (I usually just squirt a bunch until I feel like it's enough, your guess is as good as mine. Maybe one lemon's worth?)
Za'atar spice (same deal as the lemon juice, just kinda sprinkle it on top)

Put all above ingredients in a food processor (or if yours is as teensy as mine, do half at a time), blend until mostly smooth. I can't seem to get mine thoroughly smooth, but it's not the end of the world if there are chickpea chunks (I love alliteration).

Can be refrigerated and eaten for several days. The recipe for this I found online said three days. I ate it in five and I'm still breathing, but your mileage may vary.

Enjoy!

Restaurant Review - Grezzo's (Vegan raw food)

2009-04-27T10:13:00.003-04:00

Friday night, I went to Grezzo's in the North End for vegan raw food. The menu on the link is mostly the same, though the specials have changed.

For those of you who aren't familiar with vegan or raw food, the basic concept is this: vegan means that there's no animal products involved (no meat, eggs, milk, cheese, honey, yeast, maple syrup) and raw means that nothing is heated over 112 degrees. They also don't use any canned or processed ingredients. The literature on the table mentions that raw food is supposed to give you a buzz after the fact, but I don't honestly remember the whys of it. For more about the raw food movement, visit the Living and Raw Foods website.

I was intrigued by the idea. I've heard of the raw food movement, and I know a lot of people swear by it. I'm neither a raw foodist or a vegan, but I am an adventurous eater and figured I'd try it. Plus, my cousin was in town to run the marathon, and had expressed interest in eating there. So after the race, I headed over with her (I'll call her C, for cousin, just so I don't have to keep writing "my cousin") and P (as a side note, P and I had stayed with C when we went down to the inauguration, so we wanted to treat her to an awesome night out as thanks).

So, we get to the restaurant for our 6:30 reservation. And this place is tiny. I mean, seriously, probably about the same size as my shoebox condo, but elongated. It was very cute, though, tastefully decorated, comfortable chairs, and (/open geek out moment) cool menus with magnets that slid open so they can change the menu (/end geek out moment). The tables were very tight though, because they were trying to squeeze in as many people as possible, and there was very little room to actually sit in the seats if there was someone sitting at the table behind you. P is tiny, and even she felt like she didn't have enough space.

The waitress was very friendly and had a great spiel about the menu. Answered all our questions (what's the lobster really? mushrooms. What're the oysters? mushrooms. What's the cheesecake? nuts. What's the cream? nuts.) and was all in all quite enthusiastic. So I ordered the drink special (Grapefruit and Orange cocktail with lemongrass, thyme, and chili-infused sake with a pink salt rim) while P and C were deciding what they wanted to drink. And we waited. And waited (no water mind you, though they did bring some spiced olives for the table). It took about a half hour to get my drink and more time after that to get P and C's drinks. Another ten to fifteen after that to get the straws we'd asked for (by then, we'd just decided to drink out of each other's glasses to taste. My drink was not good. I tried to take a couple sips, but it just wasn't happening. So I set the drink off to the side and asked for water. And the waitress didn't even ask how my drink was until right before dessert (when it was far too late). She did take it off the bill, though, so I have to give her props for that.

I decided to order the tasting menu and P and C each got an appetizer and an entree (plus P got a dessert). We all shared the dishes around, so I'll just list below what we got and my reactions to them.

Vietnamese Coconut Soup - lemongrass, ginger, mustard greens, mint and basil
This was ok. It was actually pretty creamy, and while I realize I prefer soup hot, it was better than I expected it to be. The basil was quite good, the mustard greens added a kick, and the lemongrass and ginger added some crunch. The tasting menus size was definitely enough of it, though.

Mushroom Soup - baby bellas, soaked dulse and pineapple
This was also ok, and I definitely didn't need more than my little serving. I'm not sure what all was in it, but it was a little sweet, a little savory, with a small spicy kick.

Sliders - spiced patties on vine-ripened tomato, pommes frites and pickles, creamy "bleu cheese" watercress
This was the best course of the whole meal (except dessert). It's the only one I really truly enjoyed eating. It was their take on a hamburger (not sure what the patty was made of), but the tomato buns went together really well with the pickle, watercress, and potato chips (the chips were potato slices soaked in vinegar and then dehydrated).

Gnocchi carbonara - dumplings, creamy rawmesan and fresh English peas with pea shoots and crispy eggplant
The dumplings were made out of mushroom, the peas had some wasabi on them I think, and the pea shoots were pretty but rather tastless. All in all, this course was fine but pretty uninteresting and didn't taste like much. C ordered a full appetizer of this in addition to the smaller one I got on the tasting menu, and it didn't come at the same time as mine. In fact, when her entree came out, she still hadn't gotten the gnocchi, even though we'd already asked twice. The gnocchi came out after the entree (the waitress said the kitchen was backed up, but when I went to the bathroom, I noticed that they were chatting. It's seriously restaurant 101 to deliver food in the right order and at the same time as the other people eating at your table).

Seaweed salad - kelp noodles, sea beans and nori with wasabi vinaigrette
I hated this dish. It's the only one I really couldn't eat at all. Not because of the spicy, because I like spicy. But it tasted like they'd just sprinkled wasabi over it, like wasabi flavored veggies. Ugh. Thankfully, C enjoyed it and ate the whole thing.

Falafel in a lettuce cup
This was pretty good as C's entree. Didn't disappoint (though I only had two small bites, but she seemed to like it well enough). The problem was that it came out by itself and P and I were left without our entrees. Ours came out after C's was already finished. Again, restaurant 101.

Star Anise Crusted Papaya Steak - dill vermicelli with cucumber and olive salad
The papaya steak was really interesting - it looked like fish (they even made the little hash marks), but tasted like papaya. It was pretty good, actually.

Land and Sea - maitake, yellow oyster, black trumpet, hedgehog and honshimeji mushrooms. Smooth lemon "ricotta", dulse and Maine coast kelp
The first couple bites were good. But raw mushrooms only go so far, and I guess I realize now that I vastly prefer them cooked. I think that might be personal preference, but I couldn't finish this dish.

Rich brownie sundae - vanilla gelato, chocolate truffle sauce, brazil nut crumble
This was the best course of the night. There was also a little dash of mango and raspberry coulis on the side that was a wonderful counterpoint to the chocolate.

Chocolate Torte - apricot and candy macadamia crust with lavender blue gelato
This was quite good as well. The torte seemed rather like chocolate mousse and the gelato was delicious. The waitress forgot to put the order for this in, so there was another wait at this stage.

In looking at my overview, I realize I gave a lot of pretty goods and fines for the courses. But really, for the price we were paying, only the sliders and the dessert seemed worth it to me. None of us really enjoyed the meal (I don't think), though we found it very interesting, and there were courses here and there that were enjoyable.

But the thing is, we were there for three and a half hours. Yup, that's right, three and a half. And it's not because we were chatting non-stop and just never left. It would good to catch up with both these lovely ladies, but it was also frustrating because there were such long waits for everything, and by the time we left, it was 10p.

I would definitely not recommend this restaurant. If the service is poor and the price high, then I'd expect the food to be fantastic to make up for it. But it wasn't. I hear there's another raw food place in Beverly that's better, maybe I'll try that one next.

Friday Recipe - Spiced Stuffed Eggplant

2009-04-24T11:02:00.000-04:00

I was quite please with this recipe. It's completely vegan, but entirely full of flavor. It's spicy (cayenne), sweet (sugar), bitter (eggplant), and all around yummy. It will definitely make my list of recipes to make again.

Imam bayildi (spiced stuffed eggplant)
2/3 cups olive oil
4 whole eggplants (of the Asian eggplant variety, or 2 regular eggplants)
1 cup passata (I used a couple T of tomato paste instead)
t sugar
juice of 1 lemon
4 ripe tomatoes
4 garlic cloves, finely chopped
T ground cumin
T ground coriander
1/2 t cayenne
2 onions, finely diced
2/3 c currants
1 bunch flat-leaf parsley, chopped
salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 400. Score the tomatoes with a sharp knife, ten blanch in boiling water until skins start to peel back. Put tomatoes in a sieve and let cool (or run water over them until cool). Remove skins and seeds and dice the rest. Set aside

Dice one of the eggplants and cook in hot oil until golden brown on all sides. Remove and set aside. In the same pan, cook garlic, cumin, coriander and cayenne until fragrant. Add the onion, reduce heat, and cook until softened. Stir in the cooked eggplant and diced tomato. Sprinkle the parsley and mix together. Season with salt and pepper.

Take the other eggplant, cut the top off, and peel thin strips off the flesh so that it is striped white and purple (I have no idea how this affects how the recipe comes out, but it looks kinda cool). Slice the eggplant down the middle, length-wise. For each half, slice it lengthwise again until it is almost cut through and open it like a book. Then slice each half again almost through, so you have an accordion shape (four triangles sticking up, connected at the bottom).

Place accordion-side up on a baking sheet. Top the two eggplant halves with the spiced eggplant mixture, filling down into the dips in the eggplant and in between the two pieces. Combine the passata with the sugar, lemon juice, and remaining olive oil and some salt. Pour over eggplants. Cover the dish with aluminum foil (I skipped this and it was fine) and bake for 45-60 minutes until the eggplant has softened and sauce has reduced.

Thursday Recipe - Aloo Puri and Veggie Pakoras

2009-04-23T10:48:00.000-04:00

Aloo puri are fried puffed potato bread. Think little buttery fried bread rounds. I was surprised how good they were (when I didn't burn them). I was quite pleased with how they turned out. They weren't nearly as puffy as the ones in this picture, they were more like little bread-like pancakes.

The veggie pakoras didn't turn out so well. Part of it was because I didn't cook the potato long enough, so some of the slices were still raw. But the batter didn't stay on in the cooking process, and even when it did, it wasn't very flavorful. I'm including it here, because maybe someone has some tips on what went wrong and how to fix it?

I don't normally fry food (ever), so this was my first foray into it. The aloo puri is vegetarian and the pakoras are vegan.

Aloo puri (fried potato bread)
8oz russet potatoes, peeled and cut into equal-sized pieces
2t salt
2 1/4 c flour
2T melted butter
1/4c warm water
vegetable oil for frying

Boil the potatoes until tender. Drain, then return the potato the pan over low heat for 2-3 minutes, to allow it to dry out slightly. Mash and allow to cool.

Sift flour and t salt intoa bowl. Add mashed potato and stir. Add the butter and water little by little, mixing until you have a firm dough. Knead the dough for 10 minutes until soft and elastic. Let stand for 30 minutes, covered (better results if not left for longer than 30 minutes).

Roll the dough into small balls and flatten into a circle using your hands. When the oil is heated until very hot, add one or two puri at a time, turning once, until golden brown. Remove from oil and drain on paper towels.

Zard choba pakora (potato and cauliflower pakoras)
2t ground coriander seeds
t ground turmeric
1/2t ground cumin
1/2t dried red chili flakes
1 1/2 c flour
2t sale
4 large potatoes, scrubbed and unpeeled
1/2 head cauliflower, broken into florets
30 fresh cilantro leaves, chopped
vegetable oil for frying
pepper

Mix coriander, turmeric, cumin and chili flakes in a bowl. Combine flour and 7 fl oz water to form a smooth batter. Season with 2t salt and black pepper and leave to rest for 20 minutes.

Scrub the potatoes, put in a pan, and cover with cold salted water. Bring to a boil and simmer 10-12 minutes. Remove from heat, drain, and allow the potatoes to cool. Blanch the cauliflower in boiling water for 3 minutes until softened slightly, but still slightly crunchy. Drain and allow to cool.

Mix the spices wit the batter and cilantro. When the potatoes have cooled, peel off the skin and cut into 1/4" slices. Heat the oil in a large pan. Dip the potato/cauliflower slices in the batter, coating well on all sides, then fry them in small batches. Sprinkle with salt and serve.

Wednesday Recipe - Garlic and Cilantro Nan

2009-04-22T10:39:00.001-04:00

These were tasty....and seriously garlicky! I would probably decrease the amount of garlic in them, because I had a bunch of leftovers and I just couldn't bring myself to eat them, they were that fragrant. But I think if I tweaked it a little, they'd be an awesome addition to a yummy meal.

Garlic and Cilantro Nan
1 large egg
1 t sugar
T Greek yogurt
1/2 cup milk
2 1/2 c flour
pinch of salt
1/2t baking soda
2T oil
4 garlic cloves, finely chopped
2T softened butter
1/2t cayenne
small bunch of fresh cilantro leaves
4 scallions, finely chopped
pepper

Whisk the egg, sugar, yogurt, and milk until smooth. Sift in the flour, pinch of salt and baking soda to make a soft dough. If needed, add a little water, a teaspoon at a time (if the dough's a bit too dry). Kneed the dough for 3-4 minutes, add oil and continue to knead until the oil has been absorbed into the dough (and dough is soft and elastic). Put the dough in a bowl, cover with a cloth or paper towel, and let it rest in a warm place for 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 425. Crush the garlic with salt to form a paste. Stir the garlic paste, cayenne, cilantro, and scallions into the softened butter. Season with black pepper.

Divide the dough into eight balls. Flatten the dough until about 1/4" thick and smear with the herb butter. Allow the dough pieces to rise for another 5 minutes before baking. Lay two nan (or as many as fit) on a non-stick baking tray and bake in the over for 7 minutes until golden.

Tuesday Recipe - Malaysian fried noodles

2009-04-21T10:24:00.003-04:00

This recipe didn't turn out quite so well. Mostly, I think this was because I couldn't find either dried shrimp or shrimp paste, which would have added a much heftier flavor profile. I tried adding fish sauce to make up for it, but it just wasn't quite the same thing. But I'm still giving it to you here because I think that it might turn out really well if the appropriate ingredients are used.

The chili paste is definitely powerful, though take my word for it...you don't want to leave any of it in tupperware all week and then open it to check on it. Practically bowled myself over, and ended up throwing up the whole tupperware with it. Not that it wasn't a good chili paste (it was), but sitting and marinating in its own juices, it just got to be a bit much.

10 large dried chilis
5 shallots, peeled
5 garlic cloves, peeled
t shrimp paste
6T oil
5oz firm tofu, cut into 1" cubes
2 onions, chopped
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
10 oz skinless chicken breast, sliced
10oz raw shrimp, peeled and deveined (or you can take the lazy route like me, and buy frozen cooked deshelled shrimp)
6 choi sum (or baby bok choy), cut into 1 1/4" lengths (if you buy too much and have leftovers, these are great cooked with a little olive oil and garlic, like spinach)
t tomato puree
T dark soy sauce (following the tradition of this recipe of not having stuff, I got home and realized I didn't have soy sauce (well, it was hiding, but I didn't find it til later), but I didn't want to go out, so I just tried to make do)
lb fresh thin yellow wheat noodles, cut into short pieces (I wouldn't used these next time, because they turned into big balls of doughy substance that wasn't very appetizing, I'd probably use rice noodles)
4 scallions, finely chopped
8oz bean sprouts
juice of 1 lime
salt and pepper

To make the chili paste - soak the dried chilis in boiling water for 20 minutes until softened. Seed and finely chop (unless you're paranoid of chili oil getting on your face, like me, and you just chop them up without seeding them because you don't want to risk the small chance that any tiny microdot of chili oil will get on skin). Using a mortar and pestle, pound the chilis, shallots (it helps to chopp these first, unless you have shoulders of steel), and garlic into a paste. Add the shrimp paste and 2T f water and mix. Heat T oil over medium-high heat and cook the paste 3-4 minutes, stirring constantly. Transfer to a bowl.

Heat the remaining oil and fry the tofu 3-4 minutes until golden brown. Remove from the pan with a slotted spoon and set aside in a bowl. Add the onion and garlic to the oil and cook for 2 minutes until fragrant. Add the chicken and cook for another 2-3 minutes. Add the shrimp and choi sum.

Add T of the chili paste, tomato puree, 1/2 cup water, and soy sauce, and bring to a simmer. Add the noodles and cook for 3 minutes. Add scallion, bean sprouts and tofu. Adjust seasoning with salt, black pepper, and add a little lime juice.

Monday Recipe - Scallops with spicy cilantro chutney

2009-04-20T10:10:00.005-04:00

I'm back! It's been forever and an age since I've posted, but I've been keeping up with my international theme the whole while. So today kicks off a week or two straight of recipe posts, to catch up with everything I've missed! March was Asia month and April is Caribbean and Central/South America month.

The recipe below turned out quite yummy. The sauce was just the right balance of spicy and creamy and herb-y. And it reheated rather well, surprisingly (you never know how seafood is going to be, reheated.

Scallops with Spicy Cilantro Chutney
chutney:
4T raw cashews
1 garlic clove, minced (or pressed)
1/2t salt
t sugar
4 medium-hot fresh green chiles, seeded and freshly chopped
large bunch of fresh cilantro, roughly chopped
T Greek yogurt
juice of 2 limes

for the scallops:
12-18 sea scallops (you can present them in the shells, but I didn't bother, since I didn't have shells)
2" piece of fresh ginger
2T oil
3 scallions, finely sliced
small handful of fresh cilantro or mint leaves, roughly chopped
salt and pepper

Dry-roast the cashew nuts in a skillet until golden brown. Set aside half the nuts to garnish the scallops (I skipped this step). Blend the remaining cooled nuts to a paste with the garlic, salt and sugar. Add the chili and cilantro and puree. Add the yogurt and 2T of water. Puree until the texture suits your taste (I suppose this is similar to chunky or smooth peanut butter taste? I dunno...I MUCH prefer smooth peanut butter, but for this recipe, I prefer it chunkier, to offset the soft scallops). Transfer the chutney to a bowl and stir in the lime juice. Taste. It should be hot from the chili, sweet from the nuts and yogurt and salty and sour from the lime juice.

Finely slice the ginger into thin shreds like needles and lightly crush the reserved cashew nuts with the back of a knife. These are both used for garnish on the scallops (and I used neither).

Heat the oil in a pan over medium-high heat. Sear the scallops for 60-80 seconds each side, depending on how big they are. When they're brown and caramelized, put them on a plate. Spoon a little of the chutney over top, sprinkle with ginger and scallion, cashew nuts and fresh herbs. Can be served over quinoa or couscous for a complete meal.

Monday Recipes - Thai Omelets and Shrimp Rice Salad

2009-03-09T10:00:00.004-04:00

Broke out the Thai cookbook today. My recipes were limited by the fact that I didn't want to buy 2 dozen ingredients, and I don't like coconut. I briefly considered making spring rolls, but didn't want to deal with the wrapping and frying. I figured an omelette would be pretty easy, and a salad even easier.

I had to improvise a bit. The store I went to did have lemongrass (and let me tell you, it's very bizarre to cut up something that looks like a dry scallion and have it smell like lemon), but they didn't have lime leaves or thai basil. Also, I forgot to buy cucumber, but the salad recipe says that you can pretty much throw anything in there and it'll work. Also, I used frozen shrimp instead of dried shrimp with shrimp paste.

Thai Omelet
8oz pork (I actually used a pound, and the flavors still came out just fine)
2 tomatoes, diced
onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
2T sugar
2T fish sauce (doesn't actually taste like fish, so don't let the name deter you)
1-2T cilantro, minced
2T peanut/grapeseed oil
5 eggs
2T fish sauce

Pour oil into pan and saute onion and garlic until soft (but don't let the garlic brown or it can become bitter). Add pork and cook until slightly browned. Add tomato, cilantro, 2T fish sauce and sugar and cook until liquid (from the tomatoes) has thickened a little bit (or, until you get tired of cooking it, like me, and just use a slotted spoon to remove it from the pan).

Beat eggs together with 2T fish sauce (what I did was to do three eggs at a time, as that was one omelet and when I make the rest of the pork into the omelet, I'll crack more eggs). Pour the egg mixture in a thin layer into a medium-large pan and cook until slightly browned on the bottom and no longer runny on top. Spoon pork mixture on top. Using a spatula, serve on a plate. The recipe said to fold the egg over the pork into a packet. However, I put too much pork and it just didn't fold easily (it'll come out of the pan more easily if you lift it a little on each side to loosen before sliding the whole thing out). So I just had a pork sandwiched in egg, and it was tasty.

Shrimp Rice Salad
3C cooked rice (I used brown rice)
20 frozen shrimp, defrosted and cut into small pieces (I'm guessing at the amount, this is flexible)
2 lemongrass stalks, sliced into small pieces
C toasted slivered almonds
avocado, pitted and diced
juice of 1 lime (the recipe called for 2 lime leaves)
2 Thai basil leaves (I left this out all together)
1 Asian pear, cored and diced
1 1/4C water
2T sweet chili sauce
1 spicy green/red pepper, minced
2T brown sugar

While the rice is cooking, put the water, sugar, 1/2 stalk sliced lemongrass, lime juice, and shrimp in a small pot and bring to a boil for about five minutes. The original recipe said to strain the liquid and use that as dressing, discarding the rest (given that the dried shrimp would not be included and therefore not discarded. I chose to add the shrimp to the dressing, and therefore didn't strain it).

Put the rice in a large bowl and let it cool. Remove dressing from heat and let cool. While cooling, cut up the pear, the rest of the lemongrass, and the avocado (and 1/2 cucumber, if desired). Toast the almonds.

Add the pear, lemongrass, avocado, almonds, sweet chili sauce, Thai basil (if desired), chili pepper and dressing. Mix thoroughly.

To be honest, I haven't actually tried it yet, but will be eating it for lunch. I'll let you know how it turns out!

Monday Recipe - Spicy Chicken Stir Fry

2009-03-02T09:23:00.000-05:00

This week starts of Asian month on the Lethological Gourmet. This stir fry is Chinese with a touch of Thai in the lime juice.

It actually turned out pretty well. Whenever I make stir fry, it either seems to turn out really well or really badly, with no in between. Thankfully, it ended up quite flavorful and spicy (I added in some extra red pepper flakes, just in case). The cilantro is also my addition, just because I had a bunch extra fom another recipe that I didn't want to go to waste.

The recipe makes about four large servings, and I served it on a bed of quinoa.

Spicy Chicken Stir Fry
1/2t ground turmeric
1/2t ground ginger
t salt
t ground pepper
2t ground cumin
T ground coriander
t red pepper flakes (to taste)
T sugar
lb skinless, boneless chicken, cut into small pieces
1 bunch of scallions, sliced into small rounds
2 red bell peppers, cut into thin 2" strips
1 zucchini, cut into thin 2" strips
1 baby eggplant, peeled and cut into 2" strips
1 medium onion, cut into 2" strips
T lime juice
T honey
1/4-1/2C minced cilantro
oil

Mix the turmeric, ginger, salt, pepper, cumin, coriander, red pepper flakes and sugar in a bowl and mix well. Add the chicken to the spice mixture and coat thoroughly.

Heat 2T of oil in a pan and stir fry chicken until cooked through and golden brown. Remove from the pan and keep warm. Add a little more oil to the pan and cook veggies until soft. Add chicken, lime juice and honey. Add cilantro just before serving.

Grasshopper tacos, anyone?

2009-02-26T11:27:00.003-05:00

So, those of you who've been reading my blog for a while will recall my rant about people who are unwilling to try new things. The upshot of it was, if I were presented with the opportunity to eat bugs, then I'd have to take it or I'd be a total hypocrite.

Tuesday, I was presented with just such an opportunity....and I took it.

And you know, they were actually pretty good! If you didn't know they were bugs, you'd never have guessed.

I went to an authentic Mexican restaurant. First, there were the yummy carafes of sangria. Then the appetizer: grasshopper tacos (tacos de chapulines). Having seen that on the menu, really how could I pass it up? They were less like tacos and more like eggrolls (the taco shell was wrapped around instead of open-faced like the pic above), with adobo chiles, and there were spicy and minty sauces on the side.

For dinner, we had calamares enjitomatados (calamari sauteed in onion, garlic, tomatoes, spices, and jalapenos), beef tinga (beef cooked with assorted peppers), and indio vestido (cactus paddle stuffed with cheese in guajillo and tomatillo sauce...the sauces forming the shape of the Mexican flag). This being my first time eating cactus, I had no idea what to expect. Basically, picture a big piece of cactus with cheese and sauce and there you have it. It didn't have a very strong taste, the difference to it was more the texture...hard on the outside, slightly juicy and slimy on the inside. Not my favorite of the dishes but nonetheless tasty, and I'm quite glad I tried it.

For dessert, we were deciding between avocado cheesecake and cactus nut bread. The cheesecake won out because it was so unique (how often am I really going to see avocado cheesecake on a menu?). And let me tell you....YUM!

All in all, an excellent meal, as well as an exotic and adventurous one. If you're ever in Somerville, try Tu y Yo, or see if there are any authentic Mexican places near you...and let me know about your experience!

Tuesday Recipe - Spinach Feta Triangles

2009-02-24T09:52:00.004-05:00

I decided to include Greece in my Middle Eastern month (ducks and covers as a pot of avgelomono and spanikopita are flung in my direction). But this is mainly because there's so much cross-over in the foods of that region, that it just seems to fit a little better for my purposes.

I decided to make spinach feta triangles. Initially, when I didn't read the recipe through properly, I thought I was planning on making spanikopita (spinach phyllo squares), but it turns out they're more triangles, kind of like the Greek version of egg rolls. And I didn't realize how time consuming it would be. Yikes. I need to get a butcher's block table, because bending over my regular table is not doing my neck and back any good...

In any case, it came out pretty well. In fact, I actually prefer it as leftovers. When I ate them hot out of the oven, I thought they were ok, but nothing to write home about (but maybe that's because I ate four in rapid succession, so it was taste overload). I had one with my dinner last night and quite enjoyed it.

I doubled the recipe and froze a bunch, so you could always halve it and make fewer. The recipe below made two cookie sheets worth of triangles (I don't know, perhaps 20?).

Spinach Feta Triangles
20oz fresh spinach, washed
4 small-medium onions, chopped
2 bunches of scallions, chopped finely
1/2C parsley, chopped
1/2C dill, chopped
1/2lb feta, crumbled
1/2lb phyllo dough (usually in the frozen aisle at the store)
olive oil (in spades)

Put onions and scallions in a pot with a little olive oil and cook until soft. Add the herbs and spinach and cook down until wilted. Remove to another bowl or pot with a slotted spoon to drain any excess juices. Let cool.

Take out the phyllo dough. Fold it in two to keep the inside ones moist (or well, not moist, but not dried out). By the time you finish, the outside phyllo will be dried out and hard to cracking, so be sure to keep it on the outside (if you have any tips as to how to get it not to dry out, please let me know). Take one phyllo and cut it into strips of about 3.5"x12" (approximately, it doesn't have to be exact - the ones I used I cut into rough thirds).

Start with one strip, brush it with olive oil. Place another strip on top and brush it with more olive oil. Scoop some of the spinach feta mix and place it at one end of the strip in a triangle shape (with the end and side as two end of the triangle and the hypotenuse being on the inside, not on an edge). Fold this triangle of spinach like a flag - the first fold brings the end of the phyllo towards the side without the spinach, then keep folding in triangles until the spinach is entirely encased in the phyllo. Place on the baking sheet (preferably on a silicon cookie sheet, but barring that, greased with olive oil. Repeat with the rest of the phyllo. Once they're complete, brush the triangles with olive oil and place in the oven at 350 for 20-30 minutes (or until the bottoms slightly brown).

Monday Recipe - African Chicken Stew

2009-02-15T20:31:00.002-05:00

I decided this week to move away from the Middle East and travel south down into Africa. Peanuts are a big part of African dishes, and this chicken "stew" (actually, more like stir fry) comes originally from Sierra Leone. It can be modified easily, much like Asian stir fries, for whatever you have in your fridge.

I was quite happy with how it turned out. A little sweet, very peanut-y, and slightly spicy, and I served it over a bed of quinoa. I'd definitely make this recipe again.

African Chicken Stew

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 (3 pound) roasting chicken, deboned and cut into bite size pieces
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 onion, chopped
1 large potato, diced
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground coriander seed
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup water
3/4 cup unsalted natural-style peanut butter
1 (15 ounce) can garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed

In a large skillet with a tight-fitting lid, heat oil over medium high heat. Add chicken, and brown quickly. Remove chicken from pan. Reduce heat to medium low, and add garlic, onion and potato to the pan; saute for 2 to 3 minutes. Season with cumin, coriander, black pepper, red pepper and salt. Do not let garlic brown.
Mix in water and browned chicken, and any accumulated juices. Place lid on skillet and simmer, stirring occasionally, for 10 to 15 minutes.
Remove lid, and stir in the peanut butter and garbanzo beans. Make sure the peanut butter is blended in. Replace lid to simmer for 10 more minutes, or until chicken is cooked through and potatoes are tender. Remove from heat, adjust seasoning, and serve.

Running like the wind

2009-02-12T10:20:00.004-05:00

I've never been a runner. Actually, I've always hated running. In high school, I joined the track team. I joined not for the competition (my piano lessons were on the same day as the meets) but for the exercise, since I was a rather sedentary teenager. I was the slowest person with the least endurance on the team. It just seemed like a chore. I still continued jogging the summer after graduation, but I never really liked it. Then I got to college and took up rowing (but not crew, I couldn't get my butt up before the crack of dawn) and running went down the pipes.

I was on vacation in Alaska a few years ago and the hotel had very little in the way of exercise equipment. At that point, not being an instructor, I didn't know what kind of cardio I could do without equipment. So I decided to go running. The hotel was at the end of a 7 mile peninsula, so the scenery was beautiful, the sky seemed like it was sitting right on top of the ground rather than overhead. It wasn't terribly cold (being August), so I decided to give it a shot. And I hurt for three days afterwards. End experiment.

Then I got into group fitness. Step, kickboxing, cycling, weight lifting. Between jacks and jumps, leaps and lifts, there didn't seem to be a need for anything else. And then I started teaching boot camp.

Now, don't get me wrong, I love boot camp. I change up the format slightly every class, so none of us ever get bored. Sometimes I use the step, or kickboxing, or jump ropes, cones, ladders, all that cool equipment personal trainers use. It's great. But if I have them on stations, every station doing something different, I go around and correct their form. I might do a little bit of a workout during class, but not much. And when more than 50% of my classes are boot camp, I end up not getting much exercise myself.

Enter running. I've played with the idea of running for a couple months. It still seemed like a chore to me, something I wouldn't necessarily enjoy, but I was interested in trying it because it's different than my current workouts, and different is good. I almost got derailed when a friend told me that running 2-3 days a week might not work well because it would be difficult to progress, and anything under 4 miles pretty much sucks, before you hit your running high.

Then another friend mentioned she wanted to try running intervals. One minute running, one minute walking. Intriguing. This I could do. I have to be careful, because I have an old foot injury that could flare up, but with the right shoes and not going overboard, I should be fine.

So yesterday was my first try. I warmed up five minutes (walking at a 4.0 on the treadmill). Then my intervals were 7.5 on the treadmill for a minute and 4.0 walking, for ten intervals. How was it, you ask?

Awesomely-fantastic-wow-this-is-what-a-runners-high-feels-like?

The thing about it was, it wasn't daunting. It was just a minute. And who can't run for a minute? Ok, I can do this. And damn did it feel good! I didn't have to worry about what anybody else was doing, about correcting form, about how their workouts were going. It was just me. I understand now why so many people try running and stick with it.

To avoid my plantar fasciitis coming back, I won't go crazy with increasing it. I'm figuring I'll do three running workouts a week, and I'll slowly start increasing the run-walk ratio (or I'll make it a run-jog ratio).

Monday Recipe - Hummus and Persian Chicken

2009-02-09T09:51:00.001-05:00

The original recipe for the hummus called for 1/2 butter and 1/2 olive oil. Apparently the butter goes really well with the Basturma (beef) that makes up the other half of the recipe. But I just wanted hummus, so I just doubled the amount of olive oil and cut out the butter. It turned out really well, in fact. The predominant flavor in the recipe was olive oil, but it was quite tasty with celery, carrots, and green peppers.

I did change up the chicken recipe quite a bit. The recipe in the cookbook called for the chicken to be fried in oil after dusting it with flour and spices. But in the interest of a healthier recipe, I baked it instead (without the flour).

Hummus
3 cups chickpeas (I used organic garbanzos out of a can)
cup EVOO
t finely chopped garlic (about 1 large clove)
T freshly squeezed lemon juice (about 1/2 lemon)
2t ground cumin (I realized I didn't have ground cumin, but cumin seed worked well enough)
Salt and pepper to taste

In a medium saucepan, cover the chickpeas in about 8c of fresh water (or enough to cover the chickpeas with some room to spare). Bring them to a boil over medium-high heat. Reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer the chickpeas for at least 25 minutes, until tender. Drain the chickpeas.

Before they cool, puree them in a food processor with the olive oil, garlic, lemon juice, cumin, and salt and pepper, until very creamy. Serve with chopped veggies or bread.

Persian Chicken
2 cups plain, whole milk yogurt
1/2t saffron
T chopped garlic (about 3 cloves)
1 1/2lbs boneless, skinless chicken breasts
C walnut pieces (toasted in the oven until slightly crunchy and chopped finely)
t paprika
T dried mint
Salt and pepper to taste
Lemon

Puree the yogurt with a teaspoon of water, the saffron and garlic until the mixture is smooth. Taste (if it's too garlicky, add a little yogurt and re-puree). Pour over the chicken and mix well in a glass or stainless bowl. Cover and let it sit in the fridge for at least 3 hours or overnight.

Preheat the oven to 350.

Place the chicken in a casserole dish with a minimum of the yogurt (just whatever stays on the chicken during the transfer). Sprinkle the paprika, mint, salt and pepper over top of the breasts and bake in the oven for about 45 minutes (or until chicken is no longer pink in the middle).

Fun New Foods: Za'atar

2009-02-03T10:49:00.004-05:00

So it seems this week I will follow the theme of the week's region...at least for today's post. Yesterday, I posted about scallop leek pizza with a za'atar crust. And because za'atar isn't very common in the States, I wanted to do some more research on it. So here goes...

You've seen the spice mixtures at the store before - Provencal spice, Italian herbs, Asian spice mix, curry spice, Louisiana spice, you name it. There's a spice mix for any flavor palette you could whip up. Spice mix for poultry, fish, pork, beef, veggies, ten times over. There's spicy spice, sweet spice, fragrant spice, spicy sweet spice, woody spice.

Za'atar, when broken down into its spices, isn't all that exotic. It's oregano, marjoram, thyme, ground sesame seeds, salt, and may also include (depending on the variety) cumin, coriander, and fennel seed.

My local farmer's market makes a wonderful za'atar stick...bread seasoned with oil and za'atar spice that's rolled up into a thin wafer, like a savory cookie. And man are they seriously addictive. I should make those this weekend, that sounds highly yummy.

Za'atar can be used on bread and veggies. It can be combined with olive oil to make a dip. It can be sprinkled on labneh (a drained yogurt that's almost like cheese). It can be sprinkled on hummus. In Israel, it's often a side you can sprinkle on pizza (rather like we have hot pepper flakes here).

In Lebanon, there's a belief that eating za'atar will make the body and mind strong, so children taking exams often eat za'atar bread for breakfast.

I see my recipes for this weekend taking shape...hummus and za'atar sticks.

Monday Recipe - Scallop Leek Pizza on Za'atar Crust

2009-02-02T09:38:00.000-05:00

This week kicks off Middle East and Africa month. This recipe takes some liberties with traditional cuisine (and I changed it a bit too), so it doesn't belong to any one country in particular. But it nearly jumped off the page at me because of an excellent goat cheese balsamic leek pizza I had at a local restaurant. So here's my version of this Mediterranean dish.

I would probably add more za'atar and garlic next time, as it could have been a little more flavorful, but it did turn out quite well.

Za'atar Flatbread
1 pkg active dry yeast
3/4 cup warm water
1/4 cup olive oil
2 cups flour
1t salt
4T olive oil
4T za'atar spice (I found this at Whole Foods in the international aisle, not with the spices)

Whisk the yeast into the warm water and let the mixture stand for about 10 minutes, or until there's a light foam across the surface. The water must be under 120F or it will kill the yeast.

Whisk in the 1/4 cup of olive oil and add the flour and 1/2t of the salt. Stir/mix at a low speed until the flour is combined and the dough forms. Increase the speed to medium and knead the dough for 7-8 minutes, until the dough is still sticky to the touch but stays on the mixer in one piece.

Lightly oil a large stainless or glass bowl and scoop the dough into it. Cover with plastic and chill for a minimum of 2 hours or overnight. The dough should double in volume.

About 2 hours before baking, place the dough and 2T of EVOO on a heavy baking sheet and cover with plastic. Let it rest and rise again for 1 1/2 hours at room temperature.

Press the dough onto a baking sheet, using your hands to stretch and pull it into the corners. I use my knuckles to flatten it out, which also created little craters to catch the spices. First sprinkle with olive oil across the top and then sprinkle with za'atar spice and 1/2t salt. Let the dough rest for at least 20-30 more minutes, uncovered at room temperature.

Scallop Pizza with Leeks and Goat Cheese
2 cups heavy/light cream
1/2 cup white wine
salt and pepper to taste
T olive oil
3 large leeks, white part only, sliced and washed
1/2t fennel seed
1/2t nonflavored, whole-grain mustard
6 scllions, bottoms trimmed, cleaned and roughly chopped
2t minced garlic (about 2 large cloves)
10 large dry sea scallops
a couple ounces of goat cheese
large bunch arugula

While the bread is rising, bring the cream and wine to a boil over high heat. Reduce the heat to medium low and simmer for about 15 minutes, until the cream has reduced by one third and is thick (is will also look a little like it's separating, but that's normal). Season with salt and pepper and set aside.

Meanwhile, in a large saute pan over medium-high heat, heat 1T of the olive oil and sate the leeks and fennel seed until the leeks are tender and soft (about 8 minutes). Be careful not to brown the leeks or they will become bitter. Season the leeks with salt and pepper.

Stir the leek mixture into the cream mixture and add the mustard, scallions, and garlic. Cook a little while longer to marinate the flavors.

Split the scallops in two so you have 20 thin discs.

Preheat the oven to 400F.

Take the flattened za'atar flatbread and lay a thin layer of arugula over top (the original recipe had the arugula on the side, not cooked on the pizza) and spoon a thin layer of the leek mixture onto the dough. Arrange the scallop slices over the top and intersperse thin slices of goat cheese in between (this was my addition also). Season with salt and pepper.

Place the pizza in the over and bake for 20-30 minutes, until the edges are crisp and browned and the top is bubbly.

Back to the Basics

2009-01-30T09:27:00.001-05:00

So, I find that I'm not motivated by this new international theme going on. I'll still be doing the international recipes every monday, so you can definitely look forward to that (kicking off Middle East/Africa on Monday). But I have trouble finding the motivation to carry the theme through the whole week, which you can probably tell since this is my first post since monday.

So, starting next week, we'll have monday recipes, then the rest of the week will go back to the way it used to be - wednesday exercise, friday rant/thanks, and tuesday/thursday whatever I feel like.

See you next week!

Italy - Manicotti

2009-01-26T09:43:00.000-05:00

Here's our last week in Europe and we're traveling this time to Italy. Italian food is just as varied as French food is, with each region having a different focus or tradition (I'm feeling too lazy at the moment to write them all out, but if you're curious, you can check out this site). It's supposedly a popular food in Italy because it's easy to make, but seriously, this took me all afternoon! Maybe it's just because it's unfamiliar to me. I forgot a couple of the ingredients (the eggs and the parsley), but it still came out pretty well. I had a bunch of the meat and ricotta mixture left over, so I made an impromptu lasagna using ratatouille instead of tomato sauce. Between the tomato sauce for the manicotti and the ratatouille for the lasagna, my freezer is now down to nearly half full (or empty). I would, however, use more tomato sauce than what's listed below next time.

The other problem I had was keeping the manicotti together. The pasta ripped apart and it turned into manicotti casserole instead. I don't mind, it still tastes as good. It just doesn't look quite as pretty. If any of you have tips for how to keep it together better, I'd love to hear them.

And if you're anything like me, you're going to have to do dishes three times, I used that many pots and pans.

Manicotti

2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 cup chopped onion
6 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 pound ground beef
1 tablespoon salt, or to taste
10 oz chopped spinach
1 (12 ounce) package manicotti shells
2 cups ricotta cheese
2 eggs, beaten
3 cups spaghetti sauce, divided
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons chicken bouillon granules
2 cups half-and-half
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
1 tablespoon chopped fresh basil
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese

Heat oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Saute onions until translucent. Saute garlic for 1 minute and stir in ground beef. Cook until well browned and crumbled. Season with salt and set aside to cool.

To the ground beef mixture add the cooked spinach and ricotta cheese. When the mixture is cool, add the beaten eggs. Spread 1/4 cup spaghetti sauce in the bottom of a 9x13 inch baking dish. Gently drain the manicotti shells and carefully stuff each one with the meat and cheese mixture; place shells in prepared dish. Lightly cover the dish with plastic wrap or a clean, damp towel to prevent shells from cracking.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).

Prepare the white sauce by melting the butter in a small saucepan over medium heat. Stir in flour and chicken bouillon. Increase heat to medium-high and cook, stirring constantly, until it begins to bubble. Stir in half and half and bring to a boil, stirring frequently. Cook for 1 minute, stirring constantly. Remove from heat and stir in parsley. Pour or ladle the sauce evenly over the stuffed shells.

Stir the basil into the remaining spaghetti sauce. Carefully pour or ladle spaghetti sauce over the white sauce, trying to layer the sauces without mixing.

Cover and bake for 40 minutes. Remove from oven, uncover and sprinkle with Parmesan cheese. Bake, uncovered, for 10 minutes more.

Cook spinach according to package directions. Meanwhile, bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Add manicotti shells and parboil for half of the time recommended on the package. Drain and cover with cool water to stop the cooking process and prevent the shells from cracking.

Friday Thanks - Lost and Found

2009-01-23T10:06:00.005-05:00

So, following on my experience at the inauguration (which was awesome!), we had another... adventure on Tuesday evening/night. Let me set the stage.

N's 25 year old brother (M) is special needs. Not severely so, he's very independent, can communicate just fine (in French), and is basically happy and singing and goofing off a lot of the time. Because he's 25, he wants to assert his independence, so when we'd be walking around, he would head off out in front by himself, but he'd always come back. Until Tuesday.

After the inauguration and our relaxing stint at Starbucks, we headed back to the Mall to watch the parade on the jumbotron. The two boys headed off down the Mall, P and I walked about a block away to see if we could see the actual parade, and N wandered around a little bit closeby to wait for the boys. P and I went back to the Mall (12th street) to wait for them, found some chairs, and sat over a steam grate to get a little bit of heat. N and her younger (11 year old) brother soon showed up, so we all sat there a bit on the heating vent. M still hadn't shown up, so we decided that we'd meet up at 5 or 6 at a sandwich place where we had lunch the previous day, and P and I headed to Chinatown. At this point, my cell was running low on battery. We checked in with N a couple times. The first time, there was still no word from M and she was still waiting (it was dark by that point, and cold). The second time, she said he'd been found on the Metro, and they were going to pick him up, so we arranged to meet at the Metro stop in Maryland near where we were staying. P and I had dinner and then headed out to the stop. They weren't there. I called, using the last of my battery, and she sounded awful. She was at the police station, M had never come back and he hadn't been at the Metro. P and I headed back to my cousin's house so I could charge my phone.

When I got back, I had two messages, one from M, and one from an sergeant in the park service (I'm going to give his full name: Craig Monahan. He did an awesome job helping us, so I wanted to give him his due, as well as hats off to officer Yurico). I called him back, and he said they had tracked M's Metro card use from l'Enfant Plaza to Greenbelt (our Metro stop), but I told him I hadn't seen him there. Then I realized...they were tracking my card. N had owed me money from dinner the night before and had purchased my Metro card along with their three. So they were tracking my card the whole time, and that's why M "disappeared" from the l'Enfant stop. He was never there. We found out later that the Metro services center that was doing the tracking hadn't bothered to check the other cards, just the one with the most recent usage.

P and I had picked up dinner for N in Chinatown, so we loaded it, a cell phone charger, snacks and water into the car and headed in to the city to get N from the park service station. We drove around the city, stopping in bars and restaurants that were still open (it was midnight by this point) to ask if they'd seen him. We stuck to areas mostly that'd he'd been to before because we figured he'd go where he was most comfortable. Then N decided she had to walk, so she got out to check the local ATMs (since they're out of the cold) and P and I drove over to where we'd gone to Starbucks earlier in the day, just in case he ended up there. He hadn't. By the time we reconvened on the Mall, it was almost 3a and we'd been awake for almost 24 hours. My vision was starting to get a little blurry around the edges, so we headed back to Maryland.

N tried to reach her mother in France, but wasn't able to get through. We all did our best to sleep. At 5 or 6a, N's mother called me. My cell phone ring isn't quiet, so my heart was yammering in my chest, because I thought it might be the park service who'd found him. But it turns out that he had been found. The only thing he had in his possession was his Metro card (N had held on to everything else to keep it safe), which was one of the reasons we were worried - he had no money to get food. He used his Metro card to get to the airport (I don't know which one), found an employee there who spoke French (and who was kind enough to buy him a coffee). And somehow, he found a way to phone his mother in France, who then called us. We called the park service, who went to the airport to pick him up (N talked to him on the phone to tell him how exciting a ride in a real police car would be, so he was psyched up about it). We were to pick him up in the morning (or, later in the morning I should say). N woke us up at 9:30 to say that he was at the house, and we should sleep in. A wonderful police/park service agent named Elizabeth (I don't remember her full name) dropped him off all the way out in Maryland.

It turns out the reason he never came back was that he got confused about the Mall...he had come back, but instead of returning to 12th street were we were, he went back to 7th street and didn't find us.

We were really worried while this whole thing was going down, because we didn't know whether he was stuck out in the cold, if he'd run into some unsavory characters, or the like, though we were hoping that all would turn out for the best. And it did. The park service had some wonderful people on staff who did all they could to help us, and they did so in a very friendly and compassionate way. My cousin also was wonderful - she normally goes to bed early and gets up early, but she picked us up at 9:30 at the train, and she woke up when we got home at 4 (I still don't know how she heard us) to find out if everything was ok. She also made fresh bread for us every morning in her bread maker and let us stay an extra day (to get sleep after the long night).

It was a tough situation, but with the five of us working together with the authorities, we were able to pull through it and M came back safe and sound. If you're ever in a like situation (which I really hope you're not), I hope that you have the luck that we had to work with as many wonderful people and to have the situation resolve as well as ours did.

Definitely a Friday, or a whole week, of thanks.

Inauguration: Day 2

2009-01-21T15:31:00.011-05:00

The day dawned bright and early (or should I say dark and early?), alarms ringing at 4:45. And we thought that that might actually be a bit late to start out, but we couldn't bring ourselves to get up earlier. A long day ahead! We got to the last stop on the metro around 6:30a and there was a mass of people milling about outside, like a tidal wave flooding into the station. The metro definitely made a boatload of money off the day, as everyone had to buy passes (unlike Boston where they generally make events like First Night on 12/31 a free subway day). The passes created a bottleneck in the station, because everyone had to feed their pass into the turnstile and go through individually. At first, we didn't understand why they couldn't find a way to make it go more smoothly (whether by opening the gates or what have you), but it turns out that they really thought it through. When we got on the subway car, there were only a few of us on it. But by the time we got off, it was packed solid. If we'd all packed the car at the end of the line, then nobody at the following stops would've been able to get on and it would've been a nightmare.

When we arrived at L'Enfant Plaza (which is one of the big central stops right near the Mall), the people on the platform were packed right up against the outside of the car already, before we got out. The train had to sit for a few minutes before we could even think of disembarking. Once we got off and the train pulled away, there were a few very nervous moments, as we were balanced precariously at the edge of the platform and the next train was pulling in. There was one escalator going upstairs (and they had thankfully stopped them all so we wouldn't crush into each other, everyone just walked up). I took this photo at the top of the stairs (top - you can't see it well, but that whole bottom level is covered in people), and this one at the escalators going outside (bottom):

Once outside, we headed to the mall. This was about 7:00 by this point, and man was it crowded! Romny left me a message saying that the line for the metro at some point during the morning was seven blocks long. We got there, found a spot, and then I headed off to find a port-a-potty, and N's two bothers headed to find them as well, but we were quickly separated. And when I got back, I couldn't find N or P to save my life. We brought walkie talkies, but we didn't get much on them except static or other people talking. Cell phones worked but were spotty. So wandered around a bit, and was able to reach C on her cell phone, so I tried to find her up a the next jumbotron (which was about a block away). Our conversations went something like this:

me: I'm opposite the carousel on the left side of the Mall
C: which left? facing the Capitol or facing the monument?
me: left facing the Capitol. Do you see the red pom pom waved overhead?
C: yes! I see the red pom pom! I'm closer to the Capitol.
me: how much closer? how many trees up from the pom pom are you?
C: oh, wait, maybe I don't see a pom pom, I think that was a hat...
me: how about the video camera being waved overhead with a stick?
C: hmmm, I'm not...(call lost)
I finally reached P and we met up at the Carousel (yay! Everyone was very friendly, but I didn't want to spend the next four hours with strangers only...). So, when I left N and P, and N's brothers hadn't come back, she went looking for them. Then none of us came back, so P was left alone. Right before she found me, N came back with her brothers (she had stood on top of a trash can to find them and was yelled at by security). So P and I were set to meet her ten people back from Leaf Man (pictured above). Next time I go to anything crazy like this, I'm definitely bringing something I can wave overhead!

We found ourselves a nice little area in the midst of the crowd craziness - there were three or four mega-tall people in a row, creating a large open space behind them, so it wasn't as tightly packed as elsewhere. That's where we stayed until the inauguration feed began. While we were waiting, they played clips from the Sunday afternoon concert, and I recorded Pride (In the Name of Love) because I love U2 and it was just an energizing song, but can't get it to upload this time.

They started showing the people walking onto the Capitol steps around, I dunno, 11. They had the inauguration committee, the Supreme Court, the senators (I saw both of mine there -Kennedy and Kerry), the governors (didn't see Patrick), the appointed cabinet, the past presidents and their wives, the past VPs and their wives, and pretty much anyone else of importance in politics. And they actually started on time with the ceremony (this whole thing was planned wonderfully). First was Biden's swearing in, and there were tons of cheers and flag waving and hoopla in the crowd. Then came Obama's time. You can't see it well, but the photo on the left is of Obama taking the oath. A man in front of me in the crowd lit up a cigar as the rest of the crowd cheered and screamed and waved. One woman was able to record the whole speech on her cell phone. As he talked, the chorus of "Amen" and "Mm hm" around me was resounding, and the woman standing next to me was nearly in tears.

After his speech, the crowd started to move fairly quickly (as we were leaving, the Poet Laureate was reading her poem, and I was fascinated especially by her calling words both "spiny" and "smooth"). We headed to 12th street to try to get up to the parade. No dice. So we headed up to 14th street. Still nothing. Down to 7th. We were starting to feel like rats in a maze, coming to dead ends. The jumbotron recommended heading to 14th to catch the metro, but we knew it would be insane right about then. We tried our hardest to get to the parade but couldn't, so we headed over to the other side of the Mall and just started walking where there were the fewest people. At this point, we were tired and freezing and were looking for a cafe of some kind to warm up. But it was all Federal Buildings. We ended up behind the Mandarin Oriental hotel, which is a five star hotel (they hosted one of the galas last night), but the doors were locked to the outside. As we were walking away, someone exited, so we raced in to hear an employee call security down to the doors (because there were many of us coming in). We walked through the hotel and found a Starbucks on the other side. This was the perfect Starbucks to go to. We waited in line for about an hour, I got my London Fog tea latte and some chocolate, and we went out the other door, which led to a little closed hallway where we set our stuff down, peeled off layers, and basically began the slow process of feeling human once again with the warm drinks, the warm air and the rest. We heard a rumor that they closed l'Enfant Plaza because someone fell on the tracks, but I'm not sure about the veracity of that.

After about an hour or an hour and a half, we decided to head back to the Mall. And there they had the parade playing on the jumbotron. So P and I decided to go over and see if we could get to it now that the crowds were less. We managed to get up 12th to the street before the parade, the staging ground where all the marchers line up before they head now Pennsylvania Ave. We saw women in tiny costumes (I hope they had skin-color insulation, because man was it cold out there!) and marching bands then we headed back to watch more of the parade on the jumbotron.

We ended up in Chinatown, which is where all the vendors ended up. The atmosphere was wonderful down there. Lots of people walking around, looking through the vendor's tables, shopping the sales in the stores. And there were also tons of people running around in tuxes and dresses and heels, heading to various galas, from the military ball to the regional balls to the official one (I hear that Obama went to something like 7 or 10 balls on Tuesday night).

By the time we headed back to the metro around 8:30, there were many fewer people there and it was practically normal traffic levels.

The inauguration was a wonderful experience. I saw one lady with a bunch of the free pins Pepsi was handing out (the ones we were chasing yesterday that were so elusive) and asked her where she'd gotten them. She was wonderfully sweet and gave me one of her pins that she had two of (Yes You Can) and her friend gave P her only pin (Hope). That's the kind of spirit that was out on the Mall yesterday. When I was lost, I was talking to people in the crowd, and one couple told us that if I couldn't find my friends, then I could stand with them. Everyone seemed supercool with all the crowded craziness going on (except for the few people sitting who got made when people tripped on them). One lady took our pictures because she wanted pictures of people from all over the place. There was a lady wrapped up in yellow and red fleece, a lady where heart-shaped sunglasses with Obama written on them, and a plethora of Obama hats and pins and random gear. It was a very positive atmosphere, and given the hard economic times we're facing, that's exactly what everyone needed. A few moments to stand back from their troubles, to feel like there's someone up there who's working for them, to feel hope again.

Inauguration: Day 1

2009-01-19T21:16:00.008-05:00

So I'm at the inauguration! There's definitely a buzz in this city. On Sunday, we visited the White House briefly, but couldn't see much because the really good view was blocked off in preparation for the parade tomorrow. We walked around a bit, then headed out.

Today we decided to get in to town in the morning, but not too terribly early. So we headed to the train station around 10:30 or so to buy our tickets. The paper tickets they're selling have Obama's face in black and white printed on them, and you can also buy a commemorative hard plastic card (it looks rather like a Back to the Future style to the card) for the metro. We waited in line:All in all, the line was not long at all. We waited not even ten minutes (despite the number of people this looks like, it really wasn't long at all). Plus, they had a metro employee up at the machines helping (and thank goodness, because I probably would've ended up with tickets to Baltimore or something). The line was backed up all the way to the subway turnstiles, so it seemed much denser than it actually ended up being. I don't have a picture, but when we emerged at the end of the day, the line was just as long....except that when you left the station it extended another block or so down the street. Yikes! Am I ever glad I bought my tickets this morning instead of waiting until later on! Looks like everyone stopped by the station tonight to get their tickets for tomorrow morning and ended up stuck in an hour's long line.

When we got to the Mall, there weren't too many people milling around...I was actually surprised, because I expected more. The weather was beautiful. Cold and crisp but not biting like it was yesterday. But that could've had more to do with my nifty sleeping bag jacket than any objective take on the weather. And all the layers I wore to keep warm: exercise pants under jeans, a long sleeve shirt under a thick sweatshirt hoodie and my sleeping bag jacket, gloves, and thermal socks. I had those heat packets (that you use for skiing) on hand in case they should be needed and thankfully today they weren't (actually, not entirely true....they went to a good cause because C forgot her gloves so I put the hand warmers in her pockets). I'm thinking I could set up a brisk business selling the rest of my handwarmers to people at the inauguration tomorrow, there were plenty of vendors doing the same thing today!

You want to know the problem with wearing so many layers? I'll give you a guess with this picture:

And just imagine, there are lines of these EVERYWHERE in the city. It's rather amazing in fact. The Mall is lined with them end to end. There are so many, I really don't envy the people who have to come out and empty them. Because I came across a couple that were already full, and it's not even inauguration day yet!

So then came the vendors. There was everything from the people with a cause (and honestly, they had the best t-shirts out on the Mall, in my opinion), the people with a message (black power, Yes We Can, change is coming, what have you), the people with a fight (P has a great picture which I haven't gotten yet, but there were several ultra-conservative religious types with placards which both promoted Christianity and denounced homosexuality, abortion and sports nuts in the same breath), and the people with a talent (from handmade bags to buttons to hats). It was fascinating looking through the merchandise, and the people buying the merchandise. There were people from every corner of the country. From the students from Utah who were actually able to get inauguration tickets (because how many people are going to want them in such a red state as Utah?) to my friends from France, from the Floridians shivering in the cold to the DC-ites with a slightly shell-shocked glaze in their eyes.

The great thing about this election is that it's brought so many people together, and it's really brought politics to everyone, especially the youth, in a way that it just hasn't been before. Sure, we've had plenty of elections, but this is the first I've seen (and this is the fourth election I've voted in) in which the election really ignited people's passions and emotions more than their sense of civic duty. People here are excited. Any time they see a button or a bag they like, they'll run over and ask you where you got it. In fact, we spent a good amount of time chasing the elusive Pepsi truck...the mysterious truck which was giving away free "Hope" bags and pins, but which always seemed to be beyond the next street. Given just how many people are crushed into the city, I didn't see any tempers flying today. I saw a lot of cooperation and a lot of compassion, a lot of excitement and a lot of hope.

Lethological goes to Washington

2009-01-16T22:22:00.002-05:00

So bright and early tomorrow morning I'm off to Washington for the inauguration. I'm traveling with my friend P, meeting up with C and her family, and N is flying in from France. France! Woohoo!

I'm bringing my camera and plan to take pictures and write blogs posts. So politics are going to overtake the Gourmet webpage for the next few days.

The regular deal will be back late next week, followed closely by Italy week the week after next.

Hello freezing millions, we'll warm up the capitol with our cheers!

Dodge Dip Duck Dive Dodge!

2009-01-14T10:09:00.003-05:00

In the summer and fall, there's kickball to get my social sports fix. In the winter, there's no kickball sadly. I suppose they'd rather we not all get frostbite playing in the snow. One of the great things about kickball, in addition to playing the game, is going to the bar afterwards and socializing (whether it's talking, playing flip cup, beer pong, or what have you).

So, in the winter, there's dodgeball. This is my third year playing dodgeball. Last year and the year before, the league I was in wasn't very social. Everyone went to the games, spiked balls at people with super intensity, and then went home. Very little bar socializing. Definitely more exercise than kickball though. Most of the exercise in kickball comes from jumping up and down and cheering.

This year, we've switched to a new league, which is wonderfully close to home. The only thing I knew about it going in is that we play in sock-feet. This seemed rather strange to me - I pictured a hardwood basketball court and people sliding around in their socks like on a skating rink. Could be fun, right? Actually, it's a padded floor that's pretty springy, so skipping is mandatory (at least in my book). It's a tiny room, so one of the strategies it cuts down on is this - tossing the ball really lightly high in the air, as a means to tantalize the opponent, make them focus on that ball, and then pegging them with a fastball while they're not looking. You can still do that, just not floating it really high, as the ceiling's only about 8-9 feet high.

The other great thing about it is that they have refs provided. In the old league, we had to ref our own games, which led to anywhere between snippy exchanges to out and out arguments with the refs over calls. In this game, there's a lot of the stress taken out because the reffing is consistent and objective.

And music, can't forget that. They pipe in rock, techno, and pop music to pump you up while you're playing. It's awesome.

So here are the basic rules:

1. No more than six players on the court at a time. Of those six, no more than four can be guys (but you can play six girls).

2. Each team runs for the three balls on their right side of the court. We used to all run for the same balls in the center and man did that lead to some serious face offs (and ripping balls when people both grabbed the same one).

3. If you get hit by a ball, you're out. Unless you're pegged in the head, in which case your ears are ringing, but you're still in the game.

4. If you catch a ball, the person who threw it is out and one of your out teammates can come back in the game. I almost caught a ball with my thighs once. If I'd made that catch it would've been totally awesome. But I didn't, so I don't know why I'm mentioning it.

5. You must go to the bar after the game. Ok, so, not an official rule. But it should be! Dodgeball is awesome and fun, but we're really there to socialize, right?

Tapas

2009-01-13T09:31:00.002-05:00

My mouth is watering just thinking about it. I've only been out for Tapas four times in my life. Each time was a little different, but they were all spectacularly yummy.

Basically, tapas is a series of appetizers. The table as a whole will order them and you have a little bit of each one, which eventually adds together to make up a whole meal. It's even better when you're there with several people, because you can order tons of them. This is great if you have menu ADD, where you look at the menu and want to order every single thing on there.

First of all, there's the sangria. In my opinion, meals can only be made better by sharing a pitcher of sangria. Then there's the wide variety of tapas. There are cold and hot ones, meat and vegetarian, spiced and simple. Something for everyone. I'm going to list some of the most interesting tapas from one of my favorite local tapas restaurants, Dali:

Patatas Ali-Oli | Potatoes in a Homemade Garlic/Caper Mayonnaise
Pulpo a la Vinagreta | Octopus Vinaigrette
Mejillones con Aguacate | Green-Lipped Mussels w/Avocado
Queso de Cabra Montañes | Baked Goat Cheese w/Tomato & Basil
Gambas al Ajillo | Garlic Shrimp
Gambas con Gabardina | Saffron-Batter Fried Shrimp w/Mojo Sauce (oooh, someone put their mojo in this recipe! Must be good!)
Vieiras al Azafrán | Scallops in Saffron Cream
Ravioles de Mariscos | Lobster/Crabmeat Ravioli w/Langostino Sauce
Costillas de Vaca | Beef Short Ribs in Rioja Wine Sauce
Pato Braseado | Roast Duckling w/Berry Sauce Conejo
Escabechado | Braised Rabbit w/Red Wine, Juniper and Garlic
Caldereta Genoveva | Braised Lamb w/Almonds & Mint Essence

Interestingly, they also list Sopa de Ajo, which is the garlic almond soup I made over the weekend and didn't like. It's apparently from the Pyranees.

Now I'm hungry. Seriously. I want tapas now. Mmmm.

Spain - Catalan Salmon and Almond Garlic Soup

2009-01-12T10:27:00.003-05:00

This week kicks off Spanish week on the blog. I haven't ever cooked Spanish food before, but I just got a Spanish cookbook at the holiday book sale, so I figured I'd give it a go. There were a ton of recipes using chorizo (sausage) and some with red meat, but as I did lamb last week for France, I wanted to change it up a bit. I ended up making salmon, and the recipe was wonderfully easy to make.

One thing I failed to take into account was that the recipe called for 8 fillets of fish, and I was only cooking two. So I ended up with a huge bowl of sauce left over. No matter! I took some chicken out of the freezer, dumped a few spoonfuls of sauce into the bag and put it in the fridge to defrost. Dinner tonight, mmm! For the rest of the sauce left over, I took an ice cube tray and filled eight of the cube-holes (is there a name for those cube-holes? There should be...but then, maybe there's is, this is the "Lethological" gourmet, so not remembering words is par for the course). I then stuck the tray in the freezer. And it did, in fact, freeze solid. So now I can take out one cube at a time and have some yummy marinade!

I'm putting the salad recipe below too. It's not Spanish, but it was yummy, so I decided to include it. And for once, I actually tossed the salad with the dressing. Normally I make salads at work, and I don't have a big bowl the mix it in, so I just plate it and put the dressing on the top. But it's soooo much better tossed! And the fig vinager I found at Whole Foods, while damn expensive, really ended up being wonderfully tasty (if you're curious, it's from l'Olivier, and it's fig pulp and vinager mixed together).

The Almond Garlic Soup I didn't like at all. I'm not sure if it's the recipe or if it's an acquired taste, but to me it tasted like salad dressing (too much vinager). I'm including the recipe anyway, just in case it's my taste buds, and to give you an idea of what it is. I must say, I was really surprised that there was bread in the soup, and that it wasn't cooked at all.

Catalan Salmon (Catalonia is the Barcelona region of northern Spain)
8 salmon fillets (or you can make 2 and have extra sauce)
3 avocados (1 avocado works for two fillets)
1 1/3 cups of olive oil (plus 2T)
1/3 cup sherry vinager
1/3 cup orange juice
1/4 cup orange zest (I didn't have exactly that, I used the zest of two oranges)
3T capers, drained and chopped finely
salt and pepper, to taste

Rinse the salmon and place it skin-side down on a baking dish (or grill). Brush with 2T of olive oil and bake (I don't know the exact timing, but I put it on about 350 for, I don't know, 15-20 minutes). To know when it's done, take a fork and pull at the flesh a bit to make sure it's light salmon (cooked) instead of deep orange (raw).

While the salmon is cooking, whisk together the oil, vinager, orange juice, zest, capers, and salt and pepper. Also, cook up your favorite grain (I used quinoa). Slice the avocado (I finally got to use my nifty avocado slicer (left), which didn't work as well as expected, but I was still excited to try it). Plate the quinoa and avocado side by side and top with the salmon. Spoon enough sauce over top to lightly cover the salmon and avocado. Enjoy!

Salad with Fig Vinegar Dressing (I'm not going to give quantities on the veggies, depending on how much you need just make enough dressing to cover it all)

baby spinach
red bell pepper, cut into small pieces
walnuts
apples, with skin and cut into small pieces
grapes, halved
parmesan

dressing
1-1.5 parts olive oil
1 part vinegar (either balsamic, white balsamic, or fig)
dollop of dijon mustard
salt and pepper

Garlic and Almond Soup (this is apparently a speciality in Spain, though I'm not sure if I'm making it correctly here. If any of you have made it and can see where I went wrong, please let me know!)

3c blanched almonds
4c fresh country bread, cut into 1" chunks
3T coarsely chopped garlic
2/3c sherry vinegar
2/3c olive oil
3T salt
6-7c water
sliced almonds and halved grapes for garnish

Put the blanched almonds and garlic in a food processor and process until grainy. Add the bread, vinegar, oil, salt, and 4 cups of water and process until paste. Pour into a bowl and add the remaining water. Chill for four hours. Stir thoroughly before serving and add sliced almonds and graped to the bowls after plating (I forgot the grapes).

French cheese....and Friday rant

2009-01-09T10:05:00.003-05:00

I know I've ranted about the state of cheese in the United States before. But I'm going to do it again, and go more in detail about the cheese itself.

The United States does have some very good hard cheeses. Like cheddar. I love me some sharp cheddar, great for a snack, and it can still be made pretty tasty even when lower in fat than the regular kind. We also make the world's worst cheeses, including Cheez Whiz (cheese in a can? Seriously? And yes, I did eat this as a kid, I will admit it) and American cheese (I'm convinced that cheese-flavored is as much a euphemism as is watermelon-flavored for Jolly Ranchers. I love Watermelon Jolly Ranchers, but seriously, they don't taste like watermelon. I don't love American cheese).

France, however, has some of the best cheeses. Ever. Part of the reason for that is the use of raw milk in their cheese (not pasteurizing, which is the heating of the milk to a certain temperature to kill the bacteria). Now, pasteurizing was invented for a reason. Hell, my high school was on Avenue Louis Pasteur, so it's a major step in science. But I have to say that cheese that hasn't been pasteurized is oh so yummy. I'm not a big fan of the moldy cheese, like Roquefort or Gorgonzola, but the rest are very tasty. Here are some examples:

Brie is ubiquitous in Cheeseland. Every party you go to has it. Now, here in the States, Brie has a fairly bland, rather ho-hum flavor, and to me seems more like spreadable cheese (preprocessed) than real cheese (brie here, even if it was made in France, tends to be pasteurized). It can still be tasty, depending on the batch, but it's a shadow of tasty. Now, compared to other French cheeses, brie does have a very mild flavor. But it's got more flavor than the stuff here.

One of my favorites is camembert. This is also a wheel and looks rather like brie. But it's got a much stronger flavor. I've heard people say that you know the camembert is ready to eat when it smells like stinky socks. I've also heard that it was a great cheese for poorer families because you take out a slice, leave it to sit for a little while, and the soft cheese will fill in the area you sliced out (though I imagine this would reduce the overall size of the cheese). Camembert is also available in the States, often pasteurized, and on the grand scheme of things is relatively mild (though stronger than brie).

Chevre (goat cheese) is one of my absolute favorites. My local farmer's market has a stand which sells goat cheese in various flavors (citrus lavendar, orange cardamom, chive, pepper, etc), and it's still yummy even though the flavor of the cheese isn't very strong. In Paris, I had slices of goat cheese on baguette, topped with a softer cheese (I'm not sure if it was parmesan or what) and then baked in the oven. Absolute heaven!

Comte (com-tay, I don't have accents) is a hard French cheese which is rather mild but also fairly nutty in flavor. It's great on a stiffer bread than baguette, like a rustic loaf of some kind. The cheese was originally made to nourish shepherds who were on the road for long periods of time, so the cheese would stay good for months (can you imagine?! I should go buy some of this, if they have it, because it takes me a long time to eat cheese!)

Emmental (Swiss) is a cheese I've never really gotten behind. At least, in the US incarnation. I know tons of kids loved the holey cheese on their sandwiches, and I was just never a fan. It's still not one of my favorites, but I at least find the real emmental to be palatable in small doses (ringing endorsement, isn't it?).

Roquefort is the characteric moldy cheese that scares a lot of people. We've been conditioned by evolution to avoid mold and nasty-looking stuff to safeguard our health. But the French have figured out a way to harness the mold in a tasty way. It's also known as the "King of Cheeses" but maybe that's just because the bright blue/green mold will scare away the other cheeses, or cow them into submission. I now feel like I should go back and try it again. And hey, a little penicillin couldn't hurt, right?

There are so many more French cheeses, it's not even funny (there are about 500 different kinds). As much as France is known for wine, it's known for cheese. Here's a wikipedia page listing a bunch of them (though it isn't an exhaustive list). One of my favorites when I was in Toulouse was a hard mountain cheese that for the life of me I can't remember the name of (except that it started with an M), but I had the impression it was more of a local cheese, so I don't think I'd be able to find it around here.

I understand the reasoning behind the laws against raw milk. They don't want people to get sick. But seriously, millions of people every day in this country eat McDonald's, which is even worse (yeah, cheese has bacteria and saturated fat, but McDo's has tons of chemicals on top of the saturated and trans fats). I think we should be able to make raw milk cheese in this country (though given we don't have a culture of it, it probably wouldn't be as good as European cheese for a good while), and just put labels on it saying that it could potentially be dangerous. I mean, hell, that's what we do with cigarettes. There are warnings on cigarettes that they could kill you or give you cancer or whatever, there are warnings on alcohol to warn pregnant women about its effects. If people disregard those warnings, that's their own problem.

My two cents. Finis.

Life ish good, ishn't it?

2009-01-08T09:49:00.003-05:00

I know I promised a cheese post for today, but I'm putting that off for tomorrow because it's going to have a little bit of a rant in it, and Friday is rant day.

Today is about that wonderful stuff we imbibe so freely this time of year...alcohol. And because this is French week, let's take a tour of the alcohol in France!

France is basically one big wine basket. Most of the regions in the country support it, and just by drinking wine, you take a tour of the country. Bordeaux wines from the Bordeaux region of southwest France, bubbly champagne from Champagne in mid-France (and the requisite brou-haha that goes along with Champagne, and only Champagne, being able to use that appellation for their drink), Riesling from Strasbourg, Burgundy reds in Bourgogne (also known for their Dijon mustards). Honestly, I like wine, but I'm not much of a conoisseur. I haven't yet achieved a taste for all the subtleties of fine wines, so their mysteries still elude me a bit.

On a more unusual note, the area of Normandie (northwest France) is known more for their apple and pear trees. So you can see the riot of colors at Monet's home at Giverny, and take in the scenery with an apple tart and a tart cidre or poire (cider is often calvados, and is sometimes poured overtop of the apple tart, and I haven't tried the poire (there should be an accent over the e, poir-ay), but I imagine it's much similar, just more pear-flavored). I did try the tart with the calvados and man was it strong!

Lorraine, which is in northeast France, hosts a delicious plum which is used to make Brandy (did you know brandy was made from plums? I sure didn't! Color me surprised). And Cognac comes from (quel surprise!) Cognac...but I've never tried it, and honestly I have no idea what to do with it. I think it's drunk straight in this area, though one website mentioned that it could be added to any number of cocktails. This shall require some research.

The north (Picardie, Pas-de-Calais) seems to have a goodly number of artisanal breweries making excellent beer. As I didn't start drinking beer until last year, I didn't try any of them when I was there, but I love the idea of having beer from a small artisanal brewery. I'm still acquiring a taste for beer, which means that I'm stuck on the mass produced stuff like Miller Lite until I can acquire a taste for the more flavorful, microbrewed types.

Grand Marnier, which I should have known was French (given the name), but had never really thought that much about it, is from the Ile-de-France, which is the central region which also hosts Paris and Versailles. The orange liqueur is great added to orange tea (I'm told it's great for colds, though I've never had luck with that), simosas (dangerous! doesn't even taste like alcohol, until you feel the kick), or biscotti.

To round off the list is pastis. Pastis was created when absinthe was banned in 1915. Basically, they took out the wormwood and added in more aniseed flavor, making it very licorice in taste. It's mostly popular in the south of France.

So that's my alcohol round-up for the day. Any I missed that are your favorites? Or does it not matter, just mix 'em all and deal with the hangover tomorrow? ;)

Exercise isn't just for gym rats...

2009-01-07T10:20:00.003-05:00

So I know there are a lot of people who just hate the gym. Whether it's because of the meat market atmosphere some of them have, or the smell, or the sweat, or the funky machines that look like torture devices, or what have you. Gyms aren't for everyone (or maybe they are, you just have to be in the right frame of mind).

But here's the thing...here in the States, I feel like many of us have gotten so lazy in our daily lives, that if we don't go to the gym, we get no exercise whatsoever. I've seen people drive to the gym (admittedly, it was in an area where you have to drive because it wasn't a walkable city), then park illegally near the entrance because they couldn't walk THREE extra minutes by parking on the other side of the lot. To go to the gym. To exercise. That baffles me.

I think a lot of people view exercise as an all or nothing thing. You go to the gym (or on the bike trail or whatever), pound out of sweat, work really hard, or you just sit on the couch or hang with friends. There's no middle ground.

Well, for all you New Year's resolutioners out there, there IS a middle ground! And it's called walking, and stairs, and ice skating, and snow shoveling. Exercise in a gym helps strengthen and tone, but if you're not able to get there, then there are functional activities that can get you moving.

Now admittedly, this time of year isn't great for working out outside. I really miss my morning walks to the subway in the morning, but it's just too damn cold out now. And the cyclists this time of year must have a death wish with all the ice and slush on the roads.

But I can't tell you how many people I see every day taking the elevator to the second floor of my building at work. The second floor! Now, I realize that some people can't climb stairs, but honestly, these people looked perfectly capable, just a bit on autopilot. Granted, I used to work on the third floor, and I've been taking the elevator, so I'm a bit of a hypocrite. But I also do go to the gym a lot, so I feel entitled to a little bit of relaxation (and yes, I realize that could be what these people are doing too).

Something else I noticed...I walked out my front door onto the open air walkway last week, and the walkway was covered with snow. The snow ground into my boots, and when I stepped into the tile stairwell, my boots went everywhere. And I thanked my lucky stars I've taught gliding because as I was walking down the stairs, one foot kept shooting out to the side, just like the gliding skating that I used to teach. So I was used to the sensation, but I'd never actually found a functional application for the movement before. Coolness of coolnesses!

You can even get your weight lifting through functional exercise with all that wonderful drifting fluffy stuff outside. Shoveling snow is great exercise for your back, shoulders, biceps, legs, all that stuff (as long as you shovel properly and don't overextend your back), and it gets the heart rate up as well. So one of these days, if you don't have a mega-long stretch to shovel, break it out old school instead of the snow blower.

Since this is French week, I'll close this post in France. When I was there, there were very few gyms around to join, and even fewer classes. My impression (from both books and talking to people) is that the French don't really like to sweat that much, and high intensity exercise isn't as common as it is here (Tour de France not withstanding). But man do they walk everywhere, and they're much more likely to take the stairs than the elevator (if there even is an elevator). So there isn't as much formal exercise, but there's more movement in day to day life. And honestly, I think that's the way to go. Because if it's incorporated into day to day life, then you don't even notice you're doing it, and therefore don't need motivation, since it's just normal.

France - the wonderful power of chocolate

2009-01-06T10:51:00.005-05:00

You can't really talk about France without mentioning chocolate. And since this is French week, well then, here's my chocolate post.

When I studied in Toulouse (southwestern France), I found the 4th best chocolatier in the country on the main shopping drag. It was a cute little store (I don't remember the name) that had any kind of chocolate you wanted - bar shapes of dark chocolate with anything from ginger to fruit to nuts, little chocolates under glass, like the ones you get in boxes of chocolate, gift boxes of chocolate, all that good stuff. As at the time I didn't eat dark chocolate, I would settle for a big honkin' hunk of milk chocolate. I'd bring it into the movie theater with me and gnaw on it until my teeth hurt. I brought some with me on vacation to Great Britain, and bought a bunch of tea, which I stored in the same pouch as the chocolate. The chocolate took on the flavor of the tea, which was rather strange and not all that pleasant, given the large variety of teas I had. I miss that chocolate.

Then there's the hot chocolate, which is just called chocolat there. You can ask for a chocolat chaud but it just sounds funny to me. If it's morning and you go to a cafe and ask for a chocolat, you'll get a bowl of hot chocolate that's very yummy. And yes, it comes in a bowl. I went to see a movie last year where the character drank their hot chocolate from a bowl. The American I was seeing it with thought that they were using a bowl because all the mugs were dirty, and was amused when I said that no, that's really how the French drink it. The taste of the hot chocolate there? It's good stuff, but honestly, I'm a child of the Swiss Mix generation, and I have trouble really getting on board with the good stuff.

You can't talk about French chocolate without talking Nutella. Sure, it's not really chocolate. It's like Cool Whip is whipped cream - it tastes like chocolate, it's called chocolate, it has chocolate as an ingredient, but it's a mass market product. But even given that, I have to tell you that I love the stuff. I wasn't always on board. It always struck me as rather strange to spread chocolate hazelnut frosting on bread, and I've never been all that big on chocolate with breakfast. But then I bought some and started putting it on my morning toast at work. And man, I'm a convert, yes sirree I am.

What with the European Union's regulations, there's been a lot of talk in France (at least there was several years ago when I was there, I honestly don't know how they've worked it out) about how the globalization was going to hurt the small artisans. Because anybody could call themselves a chocolatier even if they didn't undergo the same standards as the original French version. Same thing with cheese (as well as the standards to try to reduce the amount of raw milk used, which also reduces the amount of yummy taste. Cheese post coming up on Thursday). But I don't have the time or wherewithall at the moment (between blowing my nose and coughing) to do all the requisite research about the chocolate appellation process and the current regulations, so I'll just leave with the vague impressions I was given 8 years ago. But the whole issue of globalization is an important one, in that it affects the individual process of products.

So off with you, have a candy bar today, and if nobody sees you eat it, then it doesn't count!

France - Provencal Lamb Stew, Rosemary Fougasse, and Saffron Garlic Dip

2009-01-05T09:00:00.001-05:00

Welcome to 2009! So here I am embarking on my five month journey around the world. Every month I will focus on a different continent, and January is Europe. So France is our first stop, Provence (southeast France), to be more precise. I decided to go with Europe first because it is a relatively cold region, like ours, so it would go well with our cold weather in January. So while there are plenty of summer-weather Mediterranean dishes, I'll be more likely focus on the heavier dishes for the moment. I may revisit some of the lighter fare in May when I'll have miscellaneous month (for what I didn't have time to get to).

Foods from Provence tend to be rich in spices, citrus sun-ripened veggies, and abundant in fish and seafood. French food in general tends to focus on fresh ingredients, rich flavors, and local foods (they once tore apart a McDonald's to protest globalization).

When I spent a semester in Toulouse (southwest France), one of my favorite breads was Fougasse, a southern fisherman's bread. I've taken a chance and added rosemary to it, just to see what it's like (and because I bought waaaay too much rosemary). I also chose this olive oil dip because I had some saffron from my trip to Egypt that I wanted to use. Saffron being as expensive as it is, you could either leave it out or substitute it with another spice you enjoy.

I must say in all honesty that I'm not a big fan of how the lamb stew turned out. It's ok, I'll eat it, but I wouldn't make this particular recipe again. The dip came out absolutely wonderfully, and the bread very tasty as well. If I did make the stew again, I'd reduce the number of carrots, and add potatoes and mushrooms, and possibly some other veggies. Also, the original recipe called for a rose wine, but I used red since that's what I had on hand. Probably affected the flavor.

I know that people used to make bread every day fresh, but for me, I've only ever gotten fresh baked bread at stores, restaurants, bakeries, that kind of thing. So on the rare occasions I actually make it, I can't quite believe that I've really made bread. It's kind of the same feeling I have when I go to a baseball game - I know I'm at the game and I'm seeing the real players, but it takes me several innings to get over the fact of how 3D they are.

Agneau confit au miel et au vin rose (Honey and wine lamb stew)
1 shoulder of lamb about 3lb, boned (I also removed as much fat as I could)
1/4 cup of rosemary honey (I didn't have this, so I used regular honey and added rosemary)
fine sea salt and freshly gound black pepper to taste
1/4 cup olive oil
1/2lb shallots, finely chopped
5 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
lb carrots, peeled and sliced (or put in a food processor, my favorite kitchen appliance)
2 celery ribs, diced
20 boiling onions, peeled
tsp grated fresh nutmeg
a few sprigs of fresh rosemary
5 1/2 cups infusion de romarin

Infusion to romarin
2 bunches fresh rosemary sprigs
4 bay leaves
8 juniper berries (I couldn't find these, so I just left them out)
2in piece of dried orange peel (I used more than that of fresh peel)
1 bottle rose/red wine

To make the infusion: Put the rosemary, bay leaves, juniper berries, and orange peel in a saucepan with 5 1/2 cups of boiling water. Reduce heat to very low and cook 15 minutes or so to infuse the flavors. Add the wine, increasing heat to medium-high and cook until liquid has reduced by one third. Strain infusion. In addition to use in the stew, it can also be used as a marinade.

To make the stew: Cut the lamb into small pieces, cutting off as much of the fat as desired. Brush the lamb with the honey and rosemary and season lightly ith salt and pepper. Put lamb in a large saucepan with the olive oil and cook until meat is browned all over. Add the shallots, garlic, carrots, celery, and onions. Stir well and season with salt, pepper and nutmeg. Continue cooking, partially covered, over very low heat for 10-15 minutes. Ladle in the rosemary infusion and stir to keep the lamb just covered with liquid as it simmers. Cook for up to 2 hours, stirring from time to time and adjust the seasonings.

Rosemary Fougasse
1 1/2 cups warm water
1 package active dry yeast
1 cup whole wheat graham flour
1/2 cup buckwheat flour
2t salt
T olive oil
sprig of rosemary, herb removed from its branch
2-3 cups bread flour

Combine water, yeast, whole wheat flour, buckwheat flour, rosemary, salt and oil in a large bowl. Beat until combined. Cover and let rest for about 15 minutes, to allow the yeast to develop. Add 2 cups of the bread flour to the yeast mixture and beat until thoroughly mixed.
Add enough of the remaining bread flour to make a firm, slightly sticky dough. Knead for about 12-15 minutes, adding more flour as needed to keep the dough manageable. When the dough is smooth and elastic, lightly oil the surface, place the dough in abowl, cover and let rise in a warm place for about an hour (or until doubled in bulk). Once risen, punch down the dough to work out the larger air pockets. Divide the dough into 2 equal pieces and spread each out in an over 1/2" thick. Place on a baking sheet (or two, if needed). Using a sharp knife, make four or five parallel slashes, starting about 1 inch from the edge and going across the bread to within 1 inch of the other side. Cover with a clean towel and let rise 30-45 minutes until almost doubled in size. About 15 minutes before the end of rising time, preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Bake bread for 25-35 minutes, or until it sounds hollow when tapped. Remove from baking sheets and let cool on wire racks.

Saffron Garlic Olive Oil Dip
3 garlic cloves, smashed
coarse sea salt
freshly ground black pepper to taste
small pinch of saffron strands
1/2t cayenne pepper
1/2t paprika
2 medium egg yolks
1 cup olive oil

Using a mortar and pestle, grind together the garlic, salt, pepper, saffron, cayenne, paprika and egg yolks until fully mixed. Let the mixture rest for five minutes. Gradually add in the olive oil. Refrigerate 30 minutes.

I was originally just going to eat it this way, until I realized this was raw egg yolks. So I spread it on slices of the fougasse and popped it in the oven to crisp up (about 4-5 minutes).

Looking forward to 2009

2008-12-29T09:50:00.002-05:00

I'm going to take this week off from blogging as well. But starting next week, I'm going to go on a 4-5 month world tour. Ok, not quite...I wish it involved airplanes and foreign currency. But really it's my blog that's going global.

Since the farmer's market is closed and there are very few local foods, I figured I'd take this opportunity to tour the world's cuisines. So every month I'm going to focus on a different continent. Haven't decided yet what order they're going to go in or what countries I'll cover, but here are some ideas to look forward to (and unfortunately I won't have time to cover them all, but this is my wish list):

Europe: French, Italian, Spanish, Hungarian, German, Scandanavian
Middle Eastern/North African: Greek (yes, I know it's a European country, but the food seems to overlap more with Middle Eastern than European), Lebanese, Egyptian, Ethiopian, Armenian
Asian: Japanese, Chinese, Thai, Korean, Malaysian, Vietnamese
Mexico/Central and South America: Mexican, Haitian, Jamaican, Argentinian, Brazilian
Mystery Month: I figure that several of these will be hard to fit all I want to in one month, so I'll pick the ones I really wanted to do but missed and run with it.

So I won't be making as many big pot meals (that's what all the food I've stored in my freezer is for. I'm figuring the international meals will be good for a couple meals, and then I can fill in the rest of the week from my freezer.

Are there any amazing cuisines that I've forgotten and you'd recommend?

Monday Recipe - Peppermint and Cardamom Meringues

2008-12-22T09:41:00.005-05:00

Every year with my mother's family, our Christmas tradition is to draw a name from a hat and fill that person's stocking. Kind of like a Secret Santa. This year I got my stepfather's stocking. And to save money, I decided I was going to do a lot of cooking (well, and I got books really cheaply at my company's holiday book sale). I usually make cookies, but he has dietary restrictions where he can't have egg yolks or butter. So what to do?

I made meringues. By Thursday, I'll have made three kinds of meringues - cardamom, peppermint, and almond. I've made all but the almond so far. I also found the cutest Santa tupperware at Target that I'm going to package them in ( though what's up with the tupperware not locking? The tops fall off if you look at them funny...).

Word of caution: meringues are highly addictive, and they're like Pringles - once you pop, you can't stop. The peppermint ones in particular.

The main recipe below is for the peppermint, the parentheses is for the cardamom. I quadrupled or sextupled the recipe (basically I just wanted to use a dozen eggs), the amounts below are the amounts I actually used.

Also, I didn't want to waste all the egg yolks, so I'm going to try my hand at creme brule on wednesday. More to come on that...

Peppermint (cardmom) meringues

12 egg whites
3C (4C) superfine sugar
14 candycanes, crushed (T cardamom)
3/4t cream of tartar (cardamom meringue recipe didn't call for it, but I'd add it next time)

Preheat the oven to 275.

Crush the candy canes with a mortar and pestle into small pieces. Until your shoulder starts to hurt. And your hand. Almost had enough? Only 6 canes left. You want to crush them until there's some peppermint powder, and some small pieces of cane.

If you don't have superfine sugar (apparently they sell this, I didn't see any at my supermarket), take a bunch of regular sugar and put it in your food processor.

Separate the whites and yolks, making extra sure not to get any of the yolks into the whites (to make sure not to make a mistake, which always happens right when you've cracked the 10th into the big bowl, crack each yolk into a small bowl and then add it to the big bowl). If there's any yolk in the whites, it won't beat up properly.

Whip the eggs with a beater until foamy. Gradually add in the sugar (if you're making the peppermint ones, then add in some of the peppermint powder as well, but not the small chunks). Beat until the mixture forms stiff peaks (shoulder pain, yes yes). If you're making the cardamom version, add the spices after stiff peaks are formed.

Dollop onto a greased pan (or silicon cookie sheet). Peppermint - sprinkle crushed candy over top of each meringue. Cardamom - sprinkle cardamom on the top. Pop into the oven and bake for 1-2 hours (my eyes almost popped when I saw this, I hadn't realized it would take so long).

I wasn't able to fit all the meringues into the oven on the first go-round, so I put the remaining sugared whites in the fridge, then whipped them for a little while before spooning out the next batch. They were much thinner and ran into each other, but they tasted just as good.

Cardio Nation

2008-12-17T09:45:00.008-05:00

So, I've focused a lot on working the muscles, including the brain muscle with meditation and yoga (or rather, relaxing it). Apart from my breathless run in with a very large set of stairs, I haven't talked too much about cardio.

Both weights and cardio are important. Weights help build muscle, which increases strength, makes your body more able to deal with stress (from exercise), and can raise your metabolism. Cardio helps with weight loss, improves lung and heart health, increases bone density (if there's impact involved), temporarily relieves depression and anxiety, gives you confidence and reduces stress.

But what is cardio, really? I mean, you've got marathoner friend A, who swears by running, social friend B, who busts a move in group exercise, intense friend C, who does nothing but cycle, and loner friend D who ergs her heart out on the rowing machine.

Running
I admittedly don't have much experience with running. I joined the track team my senior year of high school, but the meets were the same day as my piano lessons (a fact I wasn't disappointed to learn), and I was the slowest person with the least endurance on the team. I did continue jogging through the summer following my senior year, but stopped when I got to college. Tried to take it up twice - once in college I went on a 2 mile run, and it was hell. Then I went to Alaska in 2003 and didn't have any workout equipment. At that point, I didn't know what else to do for cardio, so I went jogging. I hurt for three days.

I occasionally flirt with the idea of running. I'm more of a social exerciser, so it's hard to motivate myself to go running on my own. I've thought about joining a running group, but I feel like I'd really be slowing them up (or end up on my own). C and I have talked about running when the weather starts getting nice again, since neither of us are runners, so we'd be starting at the same level.

My other concern is that I've had plantar fasciitis, and it's always hovering right under the surface, waiting to pop out and scream "HAHAAA! It's time to take three months off of exercise while I make you feel like you've got nails reaming your heels! Wheeeee!" I'm not sure how to run to minimize my risk of it flaring up again. Any suggestions?

Cycling
There are two kinds of cycling - road cycling and group exercise cycling. Road cyclists tend to be less into the social dimension of the activity...they're there to push themselves as hard as they can, and they've even got the padded shorts and pocketed shirts to prove how serious they are. I find road cycling difficult, because you have to deal with cars on the road or people and animals on the bike path. It's nice having scenery and getting outdoors, but I like the fact that on a stationery bike I can close my eyes and just push myself to the music.

Then there's cycling class, which really goes from A to Z in style. You have instructors who take you up 30 minute hills, raising your resistence continually the whole time, while they shout "PUSH!!!" (true story), you have instructors who vary the workout but keep it super-intense, others who are supportive and give you options for modification, others who give you imagery of your whole ride (now on your left, you'll see a wonderful view of the ocean as you sprint up to the front of the pack). Every class is different, especially because of the music.

The other thing is that a lot of cycling newbies are intimidated by the spin room, so they're reluctant to try it. It's usually dark in there, and my gym even has UV lights we can turn on overhead (though we don't usually use them). The music is loud and the instructor is often loud too. People come out drenched in sweat. But what I always tell people is that you can take it at your own level, nobody can actually see if you turn your resistence up. So if you're already going gangbusters (or if you want to take it easy), just pretend to turn the dial if you feel pressure to do so. Spinning is one of the only exercises I do that makes me really sweat. Step gets my heart rate up, but not nearly the same way spinning does.

Group Exercise
Saying "I like group exercise" is kinda like saying "I like books." Your next question would be "well, what kind of books?"

Step - my favorite. This is what got me into teaching. It's partly the choreography, because it's always changing, and there's a real feeling of accomplishment when you complete a class and do well (or a drive to do better next time), and it's just also really awesome to see everyone doing all the dancy moves on the step all in unison. It is challenging the first few times, because step really is a foreign language. If you don't know what an L-step, basic, scissor, or straddle are, then the first few classes are going to be a study in how to end up going the opposite direction as everyone else. But if you can stick out those first few classes, it only gets easier. And step is great for the "the hour's already over?!" factor.

Cardio kickboxing - a bit different from martial arts, this is aerobically modified martial arts. In other words, kicking and punching the air (or, occasionally, pairing up and punching pads). Great workout for the core, legs, and shoulders, as well as the sweat factor. The music in these classes are generally pretty rockin', as you need a faster tempo and a heavy downbeat to really get into the punching swing of things. I like teaching kwando spar (with the pads and gloves), because it's a sociological study to see how people deal with punching each other. People who know each other (or have been to a class a while) aren't at all timid about hitting strongly (especially if they've just had a fight...marriage therapy charge can be paid out to me directly, thanks). People who don't know each other, however, get these grins on their faces because they're nervous about punching, since it's not normally a socially sanctioned exercise. They smile to cover over their hesitation, but then they smile because it's just so satisfying to take those gloves and smack the pads in front of them.

Zumba/Hip hop - zumba is Latin dance aerobics. I honestly haven't done much of either, though I have taken them occasionally. My problem with both is that I'm used to step, which is a shoulders back and upright format. Then I go to zumba and hip hop and my upper body just isn't that pliable in the way they're asking me to be. I can move my hips (though, seriously, how sexy can I really feel in sneakers?), but my upper body looks really awkward in the mirror. It's definitely fun though.

Rowing
When I got to college, I tried out for the crew team. I really liked the workout (it was kind of a bootcamp thing), but the women's crew team met at 5a every morning. Um, no. Seeing as I'd go to sleep at 2a, and I'm not much of a morning exerciser, I don't think so. In my sophomore year, though, I did sign up for a rowing class. This consisted of sitting on an erg machine facing a window and erging for however long the coach told me to. I kind of enjoyed it. I'd listen to NPR and erg away. I haven't done much erging since then, but I do remember it being a great workout for the whole body.

There are other great cardio options too - jump rope is one of the best exercises that really gives you bang for your buck in comparing time with energy output. 30 second of jumping rope can totally take your breath away. There're jumping jacks, burpees, leaping side to side, lateral shuffles, among many others. What's your favorite cardio? Which makes you sweat the most? Do you mix it up, or are you a one-cardio loyalist?

Hair Healthy Food

2008-12-16T09:44:00.003-05:00

So we've all heard the effect that our diet has on our general health. Grease can cause acne (or not, since no actual studies show it, rather it's the stress that makes us eat the greasy food that may cause the acne), salty food causes bloating, fruit can thin tooth enamel, and so on and so forth.

But what does diet do to hair? This website lists the top 10 foods for hair health. Some highlights below:

- Are you shining me on? Omega 3 and Omega 6 (O3 - salmon, dark green veggies, flax seed oil, O6 - poultry, eggs, cereal, whole grains) promote healthy, shiny hair (oooh, can I make my hair look like the lady in the Pantene commercial by eating salmon? Huh huh?). A healthy scalp makes healthy, shiny hair - chow on some carrots for vitamin A (and in addition, help improve your vision with the beta carotene).
- Preventing a different shine...of the bald type... Vitamins B6, B12, Niacin (B3) and Pantothenic Acid (B5) helps prevent hair loss and graying and promotes scalp circulation. Good food sources - meat (B3), whole grain cereals, organ meat, egg yolks (B5, B6), chicken, fish, eggs, milk (B12).
- Oh so stimulating! Native people of Guatemala traditionally use the pulp of the avocado to stimulate hair growth. Low-fat dairy also promotes hair growth, because of the calcium.
- Ironing has never been so fun! As long as it's the iron you eat, that is...iron is one of the nutrients that promotes growth and hair health (green veggies, red meat).
- Don't you split hairs with me! Biotin is a nutrient which we normally have plenty of. However, a deficiency can cause brittle, split hair. Beans have plenty of biotin, as well as hair-healthy protein, iron and zinc.
- Ewww! There's hair in my food! A lack of zinc can lead to shedding hair. And given how much hair I shed on a regular basis, I think I need about as much zinc as I can get! Also, selenium promotes a healthy scalp, linked to hair loss. Brazil nuts are the best source of selenium, walnuts, cashews, pecans, and almonds have loads of zinc (as well as oysters...so if you want great hair and an aphrodesiac side-effect, this is the way to go).

What not to do?
- Restrict your calories too much. When you restrict calories, you end up eating less all around, include the healthy stuff. And if you don't get enough of the vitamins and minerals above, it can make your hair look duller and flatter and may even fall out faster (as well as impacting your health in other ways). So if you're restricting your calories, try to eat more fresh food with vitamins and minerals (that way you get more quantity out of your however many calories.

Monday Recipe - Curried Squash

2008-12-15T10:13:00.003-05:00

This weekend was a crazy awesome social weekend.

Friday was the cookie swap. I brought chocolate rolo cookies (chocolate with a rolo in the center which melts to caramel). They were ok, but not as good as my coworker's batch when she brought them in. K made chocolate dipped pecan shortbread cookies (my mouth is watering just thinking about them), L made chocolate chip blondies, S made three kinds of cookies - peanut butter cup, chocolate chip and oatmeal, and J made oatmeal chocolate chip and oatmeal cranberry. Excellent of excellent, now I have lots of yummy cookies to chow down on! :)

Saturday was A's birthday party. Being from Guadaloupe, he made a dangerously good tropical punch (rum and guava/passion fruit/pineapple juice). Match that with the salsa/meringue dancing and French swap (probably not an official term at all, but it was different than a regular yankee swap, so that's the name it got) and it was a good time.

Sunday was dinner at P's house. It was like Thanksgiving, there was so much food. For six of us, we had pumpkin soup, basmati spiced rice, aloo gobi (cauliflower and potato with tomato and cilantro), curried squash, bread, chickpeas, salad with rice and tuna, chocolate apricot cake, and strawberry raspberry sponge cake with marzipan. It was awesome! Most of it was homemade by the six of us, and it made for a wonderful meal. I brought the curried squash, so I'm putting the recipe here below.

Curried Squash

2-2.5lbs butternut squash
1 medium onion, chopped into half rounds
2C chicken/vegetable broth
T curry powder (I used Indian red curry powder)
2 cloves of garlic, chopped finely
1/2C cream (I used half and half)

Cut the squash in half and bake in the oven until soft. Scoop out the insides and set aside. This may take a while (anywhere from 30-90 minutes, depending on the size of the squash).

Put onions and garlic in a pot with some oil and sautee until onions are translucent and soft. Add the squash, curry powder, and broth and cook at a simmer until the liquid has evaporated and sauce consistency has evened out (15-30 minutes). Add the cream and cook 5-10 minutes until the liquid has stabilized in thickness.

Serve over rice, quinoa, or couscous.

Friday Rant - Natural Girl

2008-12-12T09:52:00.005-05:00

I've said it before and I'll say it again, natural's the way to go.

No, no, I'm not talking about grooming habits, that would be a whole other kind of blog.

I'm talking food. Jam/preserves to be exact.

You see, I've never been that big a fan of jam. PBJ sandwiches didn't hold much sway on me as a kid, and now, if I make a PB sandwich, it's much more likely to have honey on it than jam.

My mother, grandmother and aunt do make great jam (especially elderberry jam. And I haven't tried my aunt's crabapple (I think it was) jam she gave me at Thanksgiving, but I'm sure it's good). But I never really jumped on the jam bandwagon.

And then I made my own. Apple butter, pumpkin butter, cranberry orange preserves. And man, am I now a serious convert. I'm sure it's partly the fact that I actually made that jam. I guess in my head, jam was kinda like bread - I know that people make it themselves (obviously my relatives do), but I'd never seen it made and so it was all rather mysterious. The first (and only, thus far) time I made bread, I had the same sense of accomplishment, looking at the loaf on the counter and saying "I MADE that!" That's the same way I feel about the fruit butters.

I had a little left over, not a full jar, of each of them (well, actually, I haven't tried the pumpkin butter yet, but I've tried the rest). And man, I'm seriously hooked now. I get to work thinking "oooh, so when's it snack time, I want my toast and jam!"

I think part of it is that the jams you buy at the store are so bland. And they're not usually all fruit and sugar (they have preservatives and such in them). You grab a bottle of Welch's grape jelly and it tastes rather like a grape jolly rancher. That is to say, really fake-ass jam. And bland as all get out. Sure, it's super sweet, you can taste the flavor, but it doesn't have pop. (and yes, I fully recognize that not having much experience in the supermarket jam department, there may be some that are good, but I'm turning a blind eye at the moment, yes I am). Also, I tend to gravitate more towards different flavors. Given a choice between raspberry, strawberry, or apricot, I'll take the apricot any day. The more common ones just aren't as interesting to me.

So I realize that the jam-makers need to keep prices low (reducing the amount of actual fruit they use) and sweeteners high (because with less fruit comes the need for more sweet flavor). And cheap jam definitely is a plus because it makes low-cost meals like PBJ available.

But homemade jam just tastes so much better, and it's all natural. Now, I'm not sure how long it's good for, but I figure, since they're sealed in sterilized jars, that'll keep a good long time even without the preservatives.

My next all-natural food project? Ice cream. I'm considering getting one of those "throw in the stuff and it makes it for you" ice cream makers (not the ones that you have to freeze and the churn yourself. We'll see...it'd be awesome to have natural sherbet and gelato and ice cream, since ice cream sandwiches and fudgsicles are one of the few pre-packaged foods I regularly buy at the grocery store.

Kicking some boot camp obstacle butt

2008-12-10T10:06:00.002-05:00

So, last month I went to Boston Mania, a fitness conference. I was telling one of the conference coordinators about my boot camp class and she gave me a great idea for a different format...an obstacle course! So here's the obstacle course I did this past Saturday. The class is an hour and a half. If you wanted to do it in an hour, I'd just reduce the time in the obstacle course and then not do some of the secondary muscle groups, like gluts or adductors. Or just take out the second exercise on each muscle group.

Warm-up - 5 minutes

Obstacle course - 5 minutes
Think of it like it's set up in a box around the room with the center open

Straddle run - set up 8 benches next to one another (horizontally) at different heights - the first bench with one riser, the second with two, etc. Then run over them laterally (don't step off the front facing forward). Go through twice, the second time facing the other direction to work the other leg evenly

10 Jacks

Walking lunges - all the way to the wall

Hot lava (3 times through) - set up 8 bosus on diagonal angles from each other (from the first one, the next bosu is about a foot away at about 2:00, the third at 10:00 from the second). Level 1, step from one bosu to the next. Level 2, step both feet to each bosu as you go. Level 3, jump from one bosu to the next - pretend the bosus are made of hot lava, so you want to touch each one for as little time as possible (don't run down the bosu line, both feet touch each bosu).

5 Squats

Lateral shuffle (5 times back and forth)

Repeat until 5 minutes is up

Weights (2 minutes per exercise)
Set up benches in the center of the room. Put three risers under one side of the bench, one riser under the other. Work with a partner. You'll need mats, bars and handweights (if you don't have bars, you can use handweights). Each exercises comes in a pair. With your partner, you each do one for two minutes and then switch.

Exercises 1 & 2

Chest flies (chest) - lie on the bench (head high) with handweights. Wrists face each other with hands overhead, slowly bring your hands out to shoulder level and then back up.
Bent over rows (back) - standing with the bar in hand, knees slightly (but not very) bent, bend over at the waist with abs in tight and back nice and flat. Pull the bar in to the belly button, letting your elbows skim your sides.

Exercises 3 & 4 (even the bench out, two risers on each side)

Tricep dips/extensions (triceps) - sit on the bench, hands down on the bench with fingertips curling off the side (fingers facing your legs). If you have bad wrists, you can support your wrists on large weights on the bench. Lift your butt up off the bench, then lower it down towards the floor, your butt skimming against the bench on the way down. The farther from the bench your feet are, the harder it is.
Bicep curls (biceps) - standing, bar in hand with an underhand grip, elbows securely sitting on your ribs. Contract upwards, bringing the bar towards your shoulders (not too fast).

OBSTACLE COURSE - 5 minutes

Exercises 5 & 6

Frontal raise (shoulders) - standing straight, raise bar to straight out in front of shoulders, then release.
Kayak abs (obliques) - sit on the bench with the bar in hand. Lean back at an angle so your abs are engaged. Raise the bar in front of you, now dip one end of the bar towards the floor and pretend you're digging a kayak oar through the water. Bring the bar back up and dip down the other side (keep your motion nice and smooth).

Exercises 7 & 8 (halfway there!!!)

Plie squats (adductors, quads) - toes pointed out towards the corner of the room, shoulders back and chest open. Don't lean forwards as you squat down, make sure your knees track over your toes (rather then facing the front of the room), and keep abs in tight.
Pushups/low back (chest, low back)- do as many pushups as possible (at least 8), then release down to prone position. Take your hands under your forehead and lift your upper body off the floor, abs tight, working through the low back. Return to pushups.

OBSTACLE COURSE - 5 minutes

Exercises 9 & 10

Reverse flies (back) - with weights in hands, bend at waist with back flat. Wrists face each other, hanging down below. Raise arms out to the side, squeezing up through the shoulder blades. There a really fine line on this exercise on this between shoulders and back. Make sure you squeeze your shoulder blades together like you're cracking a nut between them, or it turns into a shoulder exercise.
Preacher curls (biceps) - sit on bench with weights in hand. Set your elbows against the inside of your thighs (but don't put your weight through your elbows or it will hurt - just push out through your elbows). Now, bicep curls slowly down and up.

Exercises 11 & 12

Glut squeezes - stand on the bench, balancing on one foot, pointing the other toe out behind the bench. Now squeeze the pointed toe up behind you, squeezing through the glut. Don't lean forward at the waist.
Bicycle crunches (abs/obliques) - lie on your back, fingertips behind neck, one knee bent, the other extended out. Bring the opposite shoulder to the bent knee, then switch. Don't go too fast. Don't worry about where your elbow is - if you focus too much on bringing your elbow to your knee, it could make your low back start to hurt. To make it more difficult, lower the straight leg closer to the floor.

OBSTACLE COURSE - 5 minutes

Exercises 13 & 14

Hamstring roll-out - on your back on a mat, put one foot on a ball, other foot flat on the floor. Lift your hips up off the floor and roll the ball out and in (keeping your foot on the ball, not letting it roll to your calf). To make it harder, you can lift the other foot up in the air, or put both feet on the ball. 1 minute each leg.
Lateral raise (shoulders) - raise handweights out to the side to shoulder height

Exercises 15 & 16

Tricep kickbacks - weight in one hand, same side foot on the bench. Lift weighted elbow up and kick back wrist until arm is straight. Pretend your shoulder is fused and can't move, just hinge at the elbow.
Plank reach (abs) - plank position supported on your elbows. Keep your hips down in line between your shoulders and ankles (if you drop your hips lower, it stresses your lower back. If you lift them higher, you don't get an ab workout). Now, reach out one hand and tap the floor in front of you, switch.

Stretch

Monday Recipe - Cranberry-Orange Preserves

2008-12-08T09:34:00.003-05:00

This weekend saw the last of my canning enterprises for the year. I've previously made apple butter and pumpkin butter, and was talking to one of the members at the gym about it. She mentioned she'd seen a recipe for a spicy cranberry relish, which intrigued me. So I went looking for recipes last week. Online, I found a recipe for a cranberry, onion, and serrano chili relish. But I also just got a jelly/jam/preserve cookbook last week from one of my coworkers, so I looked up in there and found a cranberry-orange preserve. I decided I wanted a sweet preserve to put on toast, but the idea of the chilis sounded good as well. So I decided to add some chili pepper to the cranberry-orange preserve. I pretty much came to this conclusion at the store while looking at the red onions, and decided I didn't really want an onion relish. So I grabbed a bunch of oranges instead.

I got home, and even though I'd gotten more oranges that I thought I'd use, it turned out I didn't have enough for the recipe. So I added the juice of two limes and hoped that because these oranges were enormous, they'd be considered more than the average orange. Next time I make the recipe, I'll try adding a little more chili, because while there's a very faint faint hint of it, you can really hardly taste it at the quantity in the recipe below (though that could be because I didn't include the seeds). The recipe below made 9 jars of preserves.

Cranberry-Orange Preserves
3lbs fresh cranberries
3lbs sugar (6 cups)
juice of 6 large oranges
zest of 6 large oranges
juice of 2 limes
T serrano chili, minced finely

Put the cranberries (whole) and citrus juice in a large pot and heat on medium until cranberries around very soft (about 15-20 minutes). Add sugar, zest, and chili and turn up heat on high. Stir occasionally (and be wary because every time I stirred, it would start to roil and pop and hit my skin in blazing red bites) until it sets to the consistency you want. This could be 5-10 minutes if you want it to be very loose and runny, or it could be an hour if you want a really thick jam-like consistency (I went for the latter, but next time will probably do a little less).

Follow the proper canning procedures (listed here), unless you're going to eat it right away.

Friday Rant - When did food become so crazy?

2008-12-05T09:18:00.003-05:00

As I've mentioned in several of my recent posts, I'm reading Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma right now. There was one passage that completely shocked me (or rather, I shouldn't be shocked but found that really, deep down, I was). This is based on research done by General Mills, where they worked with families to put cameras in their kitchens to record their eating habits.

"Mom...prepares a dish and a salad that she usually winds up eating by herself. Meanwhile, the kids, and Dad, too, if he's around, each fix something different for themselves, because Dad's on a low-carb diet, the teenager's become a vegetarian, and the eight-year-old in on a strict ration of pizza that the shrink says it's best to indulge (lest she develop eating disorders later on in life). So over the course of a half hour or so each family member roams into the kitchen, removes a single-portion entree from the freezer, and zaps it in the microwave...After the sound of the beep each diner brings his microwavable dish to the dining room table, where he or she may or may not cross paths with another family member at the table for a few minutes. Families who eat in this way are among the 47 percent of Americans who report to pollsters that they still sit down to a family meal every night,"

I have several major problems with this, I hardly know where to start. First of all, I would hardly call that a family dinner. It takes about 5 minutes to eat a microwaved meal, so their overlap is going to be pretty small, if at all. It doesn't leave much opportunity for parents to check in with kids, to find out what's going on in their lives (and it's hardly likely that teenagers are going to seek out opportunities for that otherwise). It doesn't teach the kids healthy eating habits. It encourages everyone to be solo in their own household. And to think they consider this to be a "family dinner"?

Now, I know that families are really busy, what with extra work from the office, various music or sports lessons, homework, friends, that sort of thing. And perhaps a family dinner every night isn't practical. But I'm sure it can be worked out at least a couple times a week.

But it's more the microwave dinner thing that bothers me. And the fact that the 8 year old is indulged in eating pizza every night because that's what she's decided she likes, to the exclusion of all else. I mean, seriously? What happened to parenting? I was admittedly a very picky eater as a child, but I still got my protein, carbs and veggies for meals. I wasn't forced to finish my plate, but I was encouraged to try things I didn't like. I didn't always try them, but I at least had a more or less balanced diet. But letting your child eat only pizza is a major case of spoildom. Sure, you don't want her to get an eating disorder later on. But I think the creation of an eating disorder is more in the way that it's approached - for instance, it's not that you're not allowing her to have pizza every night that's going to cause the eating disorder. It's the way you go about it. If you say "pizza's a bad food, and it's going to make you fat. Eat this salad and you'll be skinny and pretty," well hell that's got eating disorder written all over it. But if you get her involved in the cooking process (pride in creating food is a powerful thing), and work to make tasty recipes (not just flavorless "healthy" things), then eventually, her grip on the pizza will start to lessen.

Now, I know I don't have kids, and it's easy to throw out opinions every which way. But come on, this is just ridiculous. When I was living in Calais, France, the kids at the elementary school I taught at were eating things like pate and liver for their lunches. "Well, they're French," you might say. And no, I'm not advocating pate and liver for kids. But I think that the French have a better sense of it...be a parent, don't coddle the kids so much that you let them eat unhealthy food every day of the week (make the yummy unhealthy food be a treat, not a standard), and make an event out of a meal. We're so scattered in this country, running from one thing to the next, that we often forget just to sit down and enjoy what we're doing, whether that's eating or what have you.

People give me strange looks

2008-12-04T11:23:00.003-05:00

At work, I'm in the kitchen all the time. Getting water. Making morning snack. Making lunch. Making afternoon snack. Getting more water. And sometimes what I make is pretty run of the mill (toast for snack, hamburger for lunch, that kind of thing). But then other times I get a ton of questions. Such as...

1. "Do you know you just poured your tea down the sink?" - while I could be so involved in a conversation that I really know not what I do, I really am intending to pour my steeped tea down the sink. Because decaf tea doesn't have as many yummy flavors as regular, I sometimes buy regular and decaffeinate it myself (steep it and pour it out, because most of the caffeine comes out in the first 30 seconds).

2. "What is that?" - every time I break out the hibiscus tea, this question comes out. I brought the hibiscus tea back from Egypt, and it's quite tasty. Very sweet (with sugar added) and flowery. When it's dried, it looks like a deep red flower. I keep it in a big plastic bag, and nobody knows what to make of it. Then there's the pumpkin butter (I'm still working through the original batch bought at the farmer's market). I was asking this morning whether it's something I ate as a kid (the question was out of the blue, and I thought it was referring to jam in general, so I admit to being a bit flabbergasted at the question). Nope, just a tasty new treat I've found.

3. "Do you ever actually work?" - I get this one because I tend to assemble my lunches in the kitchen (rather than cutting up salads before work, I'd rather bring all the fixin's and make it there), and I have a morning snack, an afternoon snack, and I frequently get water. To my co-workers who may read this blog...yes I do work! A full week! But it also helps me get away from my desk, stretch, and be all around more focused if I'm not staring at the screen the entire day non-stop. It also gives me social interaction with my co-workers.

I learned two new terms from Michael Pollan's book The Omnivore's Dilemma. Neophobia - the few of the new (used in this context for trying new foods) and neophilia (liking to try new foods). Neophobia does have an evolutionary advantage in that if you try a new food that's poisonous, it could harm (or kill) you. But we also have neophilic tendencies so that if a particular crop (or crops) fails, then we won't starve. I think I'd have to put myself in the neophilic category, because I get bored with the same old thing all the time (I once had a co-workers who said she found her healthiest diet was to restrict herself to only seven kinds of food. Shudder). And so the branching out leads to some strange looks (and I believe in part horror when I offered my friends dried Mexican spice worms at a party...). But I must say, I do kind of enjoy the new things and showing other people the cool new things I've discovered. But then, I wouldn't have a blog if I wasn't into sharing about food, would I?

Glorious Pushups!

2008-12-03T09:30:00.005-05:00

No secret my love/hate relationship with pushups. Having tried the 100 pushups program, and made it up to 50, I found that I liked pushups for their effects (excellent shoulders, strong abs and chest), and not so much for the necessity of doing them. The first 10-20 pushups are awesome, and I feel pumped. Get past that (or in multiple sets), and I'm counting down until I get to the end, and I subconsciously start making my range of motion shorter as a way to cheat it easier.

Charlotte reminded me of pushups today in her post about karate, and doing knuckle pushups on blocks of wood. Actually, I prefer knuckle pushups to regular palm ones. Carpal tunnel runs in my family, and plank position starts to feel quite uncomfortable after a while (one reason I ended up dropping to my knees when the number of pushups started to soar in the 100 program). Occasionally I do pushups on my fingers, but lift the heels of my hands off the floor, which also straightens my wrists.

A couple years ago, I participated in a small group training at my gym. The personal trainer would take us to the track on the roof, each of us with a massive weight (one of those big round ones from the weight room - mine was either 25 or 35 lbs, I don't remember which). We'd do various sets of exercises, then sprint around the track, repeat. At one point he had us doing pushups. And my wrists weren't feeling great, so I did them on my knuckles. On that soft cement stuff they make tracks out of (not as hard as sidewalk, but not quite rubberized either). It actually wasn't bad, apart from the divots the cement made on my knuckles. Note: when I do knuckle pushups, I do them with my wrists in facing each other, not facing my toes. I much prefer using a mat, however.

So here's our daily round-up of pushup styles:

1. On the wall: the most basic kind of pushups, perfect for people who are just starting out or who need to modify based on injury (for instance, not being able to support yourself on your knees, where toes are too much). Start 2-4 feet from the wall with your feet (the closer you stand, the easier it becomes), and then bring your face in to the fall. Exhale on your way back up to standing.

2. On your knees: you can do these on a mat or on the bare floor. Actually, I recommend (if you have a good sense of body awareness) trying it on the bare floor. But, mucho importante, NOT on your kneecaps. What you want to do is drop your hips so they're in a straight line between your shoulders and your knees. Keeping your hips in line will automatically keep your kneecaps off the floor (you want to be slightly above the knee). If you're on your kneecaps, your hips are too high. If it's too difficult to do the pushup with your hips in line and you need to raise your hips up (to make it easier), then grab a mat to protect your knees. Another note: keep your hands out a bit wider than the mat. How you know that your hands are wide enough is that when you're as low down as you're going to go, your elbows are directly over your wrists (and not further out).

3. On your toes: Hand position just like #2, but this time, your hips are in a straight line between your shoulders and your toes. Massively important here is to not let your hips drop. This is really easy to do - we focus so much on pushing up away from the floor, that we sometimes let our backs arch (hips lower than shoulders). This can cause back problems. When I was doing the 100 pushups program, I realized I wasn't doing pushups entirely correctly, because I started to feel it in my low back.

4. On your toes, higher intensity options: play with your number of contact points -
(a) lift one foot up in the air as you pushup, or do a
(b) one-handed pushup (yikes!)
(c) cross one ankle over the other to make feet into one contact point (this is one of my faves)
(d) knuckle pushups
(e) raise one hand up on a bench, step, or pilates block
(f) support your hands on two handweights. Do a pushup, then lift one hand with weight up, elbow skimming the side, for a row (back)
(g) start in plank position with your feet on a ball/bench, then do pushups
(h) add a clap at the top of the pushup

5. Tricep pushups, on your knees or toes: take your index fingers and thumbs together in front of you to make the shape of a diamond, a put it down on the floor. Do a pushup while keeping your elbows skimming in against your body. Harder option, put your hands right under your shoulders/armpits and do a tricep pushups with your elbows skimming your sides. I hate these.

6. Pushup craziness: when I took ju-jitsu, there were the craziest pushups we had to do. First of all, they were on the fingertips (unlike what I mentioned above, which is on the entire fingers and top of the hand). Just the fingertips. Now, start with your hips up in the air (almost like downward dog), and then simulate a wave - dive your face down towards your hands, then arch upwards, so your face is coming up first while your chest is down, and you're ending up in a fingertips version of updog. But this isn't zen like yoga. It's hard as all hell. And then hold plank for a while (and one time, I'm not kidding, the 250lb sensei actually stepped up on a guy's back like he was walking over a curb. And the guy held him. That's some serious abs right there). I can't for the life of me find a pic, or I'd totally post it for you.

Are you zesty?

2008-12-02T09:22:00.005-05:00

So for the pumpkin butter recipe I made on Sunday, I had to zest and juice four lemons. Well, I was excited to do this, because I just bought a citrus zester at IKEA on Friday, like the one on the left. I was looking forward to trying it out, hoping it would make the job of zesting easier. Well, my review in four words: are you kidding me?!

Besides the fact that the zesting end of it is very small, so it's that much harder to scrape off the zest in any kind of speedy manner, it just didn't zest very well. I scraped for a couple minutes and had barely cracked the white layer of the lemon. Um, no, I don't think so.

So I went back to the ginger grater that I usually use (like the one on the right, only rounder). It's awesome because you can just set the grater down on your lap or a table (it has a non-slip bottom) and grate the lemon back and forth. The lemon rind (or if you're grating ginger, the ginger pieces and juice) get trapped in the moat circle around the grater, so you don't lose any (or get it all over yourself). Downside? Sore shoulder.

So this is an example of the grass is always greener. I was looking for a citrus zester because it seemed like it would be so much better than the one I already used. But once I tried it, I realized that I really did already have it good (oooh, now that was good grammar, wasn't it?).

Monday Recipe - Pumpkinfest

2008-12-01T09:56:00.003-05:00

So what did I do the weekend after gorging myself on two big Thanksgiving dinners on Thursday? Well, cook of course!

Christmas this year is going to be a lot of homemade stuff. I'd already made apple butter, and decided I was going to try my hand at pumpkin butter (I had some from the farmer's market that was delicious). So, Wednesday afternoon I headed to my local farmstand. And they had only one pumpkin left. I hadn't realized that pumpkins are nearly past season, but apparently it's so. And I should've taken a picture with this pumpkin, because it was an 18lb monster.

Saturday morning, I cut up the pumpkin into manageable pieces and popped it in the oven to bake (after having only once cut up and de-skinned a large pumpkin to make soup, I'm NEVER doing that every again, for the health of my poor hands and shoulders. Cutting up a raw pumpkin is HARD!). But because the pumpkin was so large, it took two shifts in the oven and about three hours total. I scooped the pumpkin out of the shells and put it in the fridge while I went off to enjoy the rest of my day.

On returning home around 9 or 9:30 with some DVDs and some hard-found mason jars (apparently these are going out of season too), I mixed up the seasonings into the pumpkin because it says to let it sit and marinate for 8-10 hours. Watched Mrs. Pettigrew Lives for a Day. Cute movie. Set spiced pumpkin on the counter to marinate overnight. I put it on the stove around 9:30a to cook down while I made eggplant parm (with farmer's market kale and mushroom instead of spinach and portabello). I finally started bottling the pumpkin butter around 4p. If you follow the recipe below, it will take much less time than that. I made a quadruple recipe (the original recipe said it would take about 1 hour to cook down), and it made 12 jars of butter.

Pumpkin Butter

3 1/2 cups of fresh and canned (unspiced) pumpkin
2 1/2 cups of brown sugar
1/2 cup water
juice and zest of one lemon
T cinnamon
t ginger (I ran out, so barely had any in there, and it came out fine)
t allspice

Bake the pumpkin in the oven until soft and scoop out contents into a bowl. Depending on the size of the pumpkin, this could take anywhere from 30 minutes to several hours.

Mix all ingredients except water into the pumpkin and let stand in room temperature for 8-10 hours.

Put spiced pumpkin in a large pot on the stove and add water. Bring to a boil, then lower to a simmer, stirring occasionally, until it has reduced down to jam consistency. I had more trouble figuring out when this happened with the pumpkin butter because it was naturally chunkier than the apple butter (which I had smoothed out in a food mill). Definitely set aside some time for this part of the process. If you're making the recipe above, it might be quick, because the original recipe did say it would take about 1 hour. However, both times I've made jam (in admittedly large batches), it has taken me the majority of the day. If you're unsure whether it's the right consistency, try spreading some on bread to test it out.

There are a lot of different methods of canning. Some boil the jars into a big pot, pulling them out with tongs. Some run them through a dishwasher. One of the suggested methods I found works well for me - it's to put the jars opening side up in a 200 degree oven for 10 minutes. While they're sterilizing in the oven, I put the lids in boiling water. Then with tongs, I take out one jar at a time, fill it with pumpkin butter, and set it on the counter. I then fish out one of the lids, dry it off with a clean cloth, and close the jar tightly. Then tip the jar upside down on the counter to cool (I'm told that doing this will help the seal because the butter is right next to the jar top).

Swing Batta Batta Batta Swing!

2008-11-26T09:24:00.003-05:00

So on Sunday I went to Game On, a bar in Fenway Park for a batting cage event. I had thought we would be hitting balls in Fenway Park (must've totally misunderstood their post), so I was a little disappointed when it was just a batting cage in the bar. But it was still fun. I got two turns up at the batting cage and they served us lunch too.

And let me tell you, I'm seriously sore now. My forearms feels like I held something in vise grip for hours, rather than just taking a swing at 20 balls (and connecting maybe 10-12). And my obliques are on fire every time I turn the least bit through my core.

Now, thing is, I cand understand the forearm pain, since I don't work them that often (except to support things like pushups). But the obliques shocked the hell out of me. I can normally do abs until the cows come home, whether it's crunches on the ball, bicycle crunches, planks, or what have you. Granted, I don't do as many abs as I used to since I'm now teaching boot camp. But still.

Regardless, it was fun, and I feel like I got some exercise out of it!

The Wonderful World of Garlic

2008-11-25T09:49:00.004-05:00

So we've known for a while that garlic's good for us. Those Mediterranean folks were way ahead of the curve on that one - garlic is such an integral component of Italian, French, Spanish (I think), and Middle Eastern cooking.

Garlic adds some definite yumminess to any recipe, whether it be eggplant parm, vodka tomato sauce, American chop suey, or Jamaican spinach. Too much, however, and people are going to start thinking you're trying to stave off vampires (and everyone else for that matter).

Garlic Curiosity

When I lived in St Louis, there was a Middle Eastern restaurant (I don't remember what kind) that had a garlic festival every year. I never attended, but one of the things that stood out on the advertisement is that they serve garlic juice. Yes, you read that right, garlic juice (and I don't mean this kind of garlic juice, which you use to spray on food). Now, this sounds about as appealing to me as, say, parsley juice or olive oil ice cream.

But wait!

I've tried olive oil ice cream. And it's not half bad. It definitely tasted like olive oil, but it was also sweet, so it tasted like ice cream. I didn't get a full scoop, just one of those tasters (Toscanini's), but it was very interesting to try.

I imagine that they don't make garlic juice taste like you just squeezed out garlic into a glass. They must add something to balance it out a little. I'm having trouble finding info about it online, however.

What's the strangest garlicky food you've come across?

The Debate

So the debate comes in, fresh garlic or bottled garlic? I always use bottled, minced garlic because it's easier (and a hell of a lot faster). I don't mind getting the smell of garlic on my hands, but it's kind of a pain to peel it, then chop it, then clean the cutting board afterwards.

Well, the part of garlic that gives it its characteristic smell is called Allicin. It's widely promoted for anti-bacterial properties, fighting infections and preventing bacteria-related food poisoning (ref: WebMD). But Allicin is fragile and disappears quickly and crushed fresh garlic is more stable and has higher levels of Allicin than preserved versions. Garlic stored in water (which is what I use) had Allicin levels decrease by half in about six days (six days?! I keep minced garlic around for months!), and in vegetable oil within the span of a few hours.

That's not to say that preserved garlic doesn't still have beneficial properties, because it does. It's just not as good as the fresh stuff.

Cheesy garlic bread

Yesterday for lunch I had some leftover cauliflower leek soup. But I wanted some kind of healthy carb to go with it, so I decided to make some toast. But just plain toast isn't so interested, even considering that the 7-grain date bread I eat is very yummy. So I made some cheesy garlic bread.

2-4T olive oil
t minced garlic
asiago cheese (enough that the cheese is coated in the oil)
salt and pepper

Mix the ingredients in a small bowl and lay in a thin layer over a slice of bread. Bake at 400 until warm and cheese is slightly melty. In the past, I've made just plain cheese bread, and the heat of the oven bakes the cheese until it's hard and crunchy in no time at all. This version with the added olive oil keeps the cheese moist and yummy, not drying it out. The dates in the bread also gave it a slightly sweet flavor to go with the salty cheese.

Monday Non-Recipe - pre-Thanksgiving and eating out

2008-11-24T08:20:00.005-05:00

So this weekend I barely had five minutes of unspoken for time. Cooking? Totally out of the question. But this, of course, meant that I had plenty of yummy food prepared by other people.

Friday

Chinatown - chicken cooked Chinese style with garlic, scallions, and soy sauce (bone in). The waiters in Chinatown must be weirded out by me, because the guy asked me three times if that's what I really wanted, because it was cooked Chinese style (not a regular rice plate). It was really yummy (though slightly undercooked). Even better was the dou mieu (totally not the right pinyin transliteration, and I don't remember what tone it is, but I learned this time around that it's called peapod shoots in English). It's a big plate of greens (pictured left), kind of like spinach, cooked in oil. I ate nearly the entire plate (and it wasn't a small plate). I only eat it once or twice a year, and it's one of my favorites ever.
Kickball party - beer, beer, beer, neon blue shot of something or other, beer.

Saturday

P's birthday party - lots of little tasters of food, all very yummy - vegetarian Chinese potstickers, red pepper flake goat cheese, goat cheese with spices (maybe dill?), dark chocolate with red pepper, milk chocolate with toffee, kettlecorn (popcorn that's salty and sweet all at once), homemade pesto, and plenty plenty of wine flowing. Yumminess of yumminess.

Sunday

Game On batting cages - Game On is a bar in Fenway Park, and they had an event where you go and hit in the batting cages. I had thought it was going to be in Fenway, so I was a little disappointed to find out we'd be in the bar the whole time. But the good thing was that we were indoors, so we didn't totally freeze. I got to hit twice in the batting cages (aluminum bat, ouch on the sting from contact with the ball), and got some action pictures of me batting. They also had food (burgers and sausage) that were perfectly passable.

I had planned to go to a potluck Sunday night, but by the time I got home from the game I was tired and just needed some time to relax.

Planned recipe of the week

Kale Chips
I haven't tried them yet, but they sound intriguing. You rip a bunch of kale off the stems and put them on a baking tray. Sprinkle with olive oil, salt and pepper and then bake on high heat (400-500) for 30-60 seconds. I'll let you know how they come out!

Friday Rant - Expression lines

2008-11-21T09:54:00.003-05:00

So I was walking through a mall the other day, and there was a sign on one of the carts that advertised a cream to prevent expression lines. By this I'm presuming they mean wrinkles. And I suppose that "expression lines" is a positive way to put it, since they are lines brought about by expressions (be they smiles or frowns or anything in between). "Wrinkles" has inherited a negative connotation - we get them with age, there are a million and a half products to minimize them, and smooth skin is culturally considered more attractive. But what's so wrong with wrinkles that we feel we can't even use the word?

My response? What-evah. Wrinkles are part of aging, and why does aging have to be bad?

Ok, so maybe I'll feel differently when I have more wrinkles. Being 30, I don't have too many. I never did understand the issues that people have with age, women not being able to admit to how old they are. I say wear your age, experience, and wisdom with pride. And sure, some people are old but not wise, wise but not old, experienced but not wise, you get my drift.

I did notice some wrinkles recently. Above my eyes and below my eyebrows. I looked at them like "where the hell did those come from?" Then I squinted my eyes (like I do when it's sunny, yes I know I should wear sunglasses more often), and I furrowed my eyebrows, and I realized that's where they came from. I find it more fascinating than worrying to find wrinkles - I'm intrigued to know what expressions my face makes that create the wrinkles.

But yeah, nobody wants too many wrinkles when they're young. Super-wrinkly faces are better left to the elderly. So what can we do to help delay the onset of wrinkles?

1. Stay out of the sun. My father told me about two of his co-workers who were related who would go out and bronze in the sun every weekend. The younger one had smooth skin and a perpetual tan. The older one, who he assumed was her grandmother, had tanned but very wrinkly skin. Turns out she was her mother and was only in her 40s, yet she looked at least in her 60s.

2. Sleep on your back (and get enough sleep). Not getting enough sleep wears down our bodies and our minds, adding to stress, forgetfulness, and lack of energy. Not being as healthy can wear on your body just as much as your mind. Think about all those people who look 60 when they're really 40 because they look like they're bearing the weight of the world on their shoulders. Also, they say you should sleep on your back, because sleeping on your stomach or side might cut down a bit on circulation and lead to wrinkles.

3. Stop smoking. It leads to wrinkles (if only that were the worst thing it led to).

4. Hydrate and moisturize. Drink lots and lots of water. Being dehydrated can dry your skin out as well. And especially now that it's damn freezing outside, use a moisturizer. Hydrated skin is a bit plumper (in the good, anti-wrinkly kind of way). My skin gets really dry in the winter, though I haven't been using my shower moisturizing bar because it makes the tub really slippery (and I need to buy another non-slip pad for the bottom), and I don't feel like starting the winter with a bang on the head.

5. Eat a healthy diet. You don't have to follow a diet fad (actually, probably better not to, because those fads usually fall by the wayside), just eat a healthy diet that's high in good fats (nuts, avocados, olive oil) and low in bad fats (all those yummy pastries, cookies, ice cream, etc), eat red meat and alcohol in moderation, and eat plenty of veggies. In the words of Michael Pollan "eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." I'm not vegetarian, but I'm making a concerted effort to add more plants to my diet. Plants have lots of water in them, which is good for hydration, as well as all the vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants. Eating a healthy diet helps the body deal with UV radiation and pollution (which I'm sure going to need after spending 15 minutes in the exhaust-filled subway station last night after work).

6. Be happy. Research shows that healthy, happy people tend to show fewer wrinkles than their unhealthy, unhappy counterparts. Exercise helps with this, both with feeling more confident and happy about yourself, and to improve your attitude. Age has a lot to do with a state of mind. I'm sure you've seen someone who was looking confident and happy up to a certain point, then something happened and all of a sudden they look 10 years older than they did just a few months before.

Not as much of a rant as I intended. What are your feelings about wrinkles? Do you remember what your first one is from? Do you try to figure out what expressions you're making that create the wrinkles (or am I just an odd bird for wondering that)?

Spotlight on Sweet Potatoes

2008-11-20T11:17:00.003-05:00

Sweet potatoes are one of my favorite fall foods. Sweet potato fries especially. Often what I'll do is peel a sweet potato, then cut it into rough fry-shapes, then toss it with olive oil, salt and pepper, and bake them at about 350-400 for, I dunno, 30 minutes (or until soft). I don't care for them crispy, because they're less sweet.

I remember several years ago asking a personal trainer what kind of carb to eat if I were to eat carbs. She told me to eat a sweet potato. Now, I know there are plenty of healthy, whole grain carbs (like quinoa, for instance), but I wasn't big on carbs at that point. So now, I'm wondering if what she said would hold water. What's the deal with sweet potatoes?

(reference)
1. They're high in vitamins A and C.
2. Good for ulcers and inflamed colons.
3. Beneficial for low blood pressure
4. Great for people who do lots of muscle work, because of its high vitamin and mineral content
5. Good for diabetes because it helps stabilize blood sugar.
(reference)
8. Immunity booster
9. Relief of asthma
10. Helps maintain the water balance in the body
11. Soothing to digestions.
12. Aids in weight gain (wait, is this a good thing?)
(off the top of my head)
13. Very very tasty
14. Colorful, and my philosophy is that making something look tasty is half the battle

So basically, sweet potatoes have more vitamins and minerals than regular potatoes. They have some great health benefits, especially for those with blood sugar or digestive issues. You shouldn't eat too many of them or you risk weight gain. So eat them in moderation, but don't worry about their whole carb-iness - since they're lower on the glycemic index than regular potatoes, they don't threaten to spike your blood sugar as high, and they have a slew of antioxidants swimming around in their little atoms.

What are your favorite sweet potato recipes? Here are some that I've already posted:
Sweet potato chili
Pork chops with sweet potato fries
I've also made mashed sweet potatoes, which need less butter and milk than regular potatoes, so they don't have the same calorie/fat load

Developing the Undeveloped - Hamstrings

2008-11-19T08:23:00.007-05:00

Whenever you're doing any kind of exercise (in particular, weight lifting), it's important to work not just the primary mover (for instance, biceps), but the opposing muscle group as well (triceps). Thing is, if you only focus on those impressive visible muscles (like quads and biceps), without working their opposing muscles groups, then you create an imbalance in your body which can lead to injuries. We see this a lot with people who go nuts on their ab muscles to try to sculpt through a sixpack, but then never work their back muscles, which in turn creates back problems.

But still, there's an impetus to focus on the cool muscles, the ones that create a sculpted figure, that you can show off (whether it's in class or in a tank top or bathing suit). Like the biceps, abs, quads, and secondarily the triceps and calves. Back when I was doing the 100 pushups program, I got some shoulder definition that was awesome, and I was nearly jumping up and down when I first got a little tricep definition line. I have a body type that doesn't really lend well to muscle definition, so I celebrate every last little line.

But just as important as lifting weights for strength and improved health is to lift a total body workout, to keep your body in balance and strong all around. So here I am, focusing on one of the muscles which normally doesn't get a lot of play time: hamstrings.

So here are some exercises you can do to work your hamstrings (opposing muscle group to quads). I wish I had pics for all of them, but my camera's on the fritz so I'm relying on the web.

With a ball (and a mat)

1. Single Leg Roll - lie on your back with one heel up on the ball, the other foot planted flat on the floor. Lift your butt up in the air until your back is only halfway on the ground (perhaps a little higher). Squeeze your abs tight to protect your lower back. Extend your foot out on the ball (don't let it roll onto your ankle), then pull it back in. Focuses on the hamstring of the leg that's on the ball

Challenge Up! Lift the foot that's on the floor into the air, keeping your hips off the floor, hands down on the floor by your sides, pulling abs in tight as your extend and contract your leg.
Challenge Up! From either the basic level (foot on the group) or level 2 (foot in the air), lift your hands up off the ground and extend them above you. It adds a bigger balance challenge and targets the muscles more heavily.

2. Double Leg Roll - lie on your back with both heels on the ball, lift your hips up off the floor, contracting abs. Extend legs out and in.

Challenge Up! Lift your hands in the air.

With a ball (and no mat)

1. Ball Squat - lift one leg up onto the ball in front of you. Sit back like you're sitting in a chair (squat). Your knee stays right over your ankle on the floor (be sure not to let your knee come forward or you can risk knee injury). As you sit back in your squat, press down into the ball with your heel, activating the hamstrings. Switch legs.

With a bosu (and a body bar)

1. Ham touch in - stand on top of the bosu. To make this exercise easier, hold onto the body bar (and make sure it's a padded body bar and not a basic metal bar which will slip on the floor) to add a contact point on the floor, since the bosu is unstable. Step back with the same foot as the hand holding the body bar into a straight leg lunge position. Balance on your front foot and the bar, tap your back foot in to the bosu. Focuses on the hamstrings of the leg on the bosu.

Challenge Up! Extend your leg back and in without tapping the bosu (but coming close).
Challenge Up! Lift the body bar off the floor as you do the motion.
Challenge Up! As your foot comes in to the bosu, lift the bar up towards you (parallel to the ground), skimming your side with your elbow (back exercise).

With gliders (and a mat)

1. Alternate hamstring glides - lie on your back on the floor with both feet on the gliders. Lift your hips up off the floor to about mid-back (bra-line if you're a woman), keeping your hands on the floor. Extend one leg out and in, then alternate to the other leg. Focuses on the extended leg hamstring.

Challenge Up! Lift your arms in the air.
Challenge Up! Extend both legs out at the same time, then pull back in. This can be challenging if you extend too far and end up having trouble pulling back in. Just get a feel for it and keep those abs tight.
Challenge UpUpUp! Extend one leg out at an angle (the straighter the leg is, the harder it will be) and hold it there. Now take the other leg and glide it out and in while the other leg balances out on the glider. Switch legs. Focuses on the hamstring of the leg which is extended and held.

Do you have any other great hamstring exercises?

Tasty of Tastiness - A meal with a skyview

2008-11-18T09:00:00.000-05:00

There are always a couple of memorable meals that stand out in anyone's life. Whether it's a birthday you had when you were little, or a Thanksgiving dinner with family, a dinner at a restaurant, a seven course tasting menu, what have you.

Sunday night, I went to the Top of the Hub with my family to celebrate my father's birthday. One of the awesome things about this restaurant is that it's near the top of a skyscraper looking out over the lights of Boston. We watched the moon rise yellow over the lights (and man did it look as huge as a half skyscraper). They had live music piped through the speakers and very attentive wait staff.

And the awesomeness extended to the menu. Everything I ate was absolutely scrumptious. Here's the deets:

Beringer Merlot (with a hint of cherry, cocoa, and allspice - and yes, I read that on the bottle, I'm not quite that good to identify all by taste. It did have the best legs of any wine I think I've ever had.)
Spinach salad with pear, walnuts, balsamic reduction vinaigrette, and goat cheese
Lobster bisque (I just had a taste of this, but it was super yummy)
Lobster mac and cheese with truffle oil (mmmmmmm is all I have to say about that)
Date pudding with french vanilla ice cream (pudding being more like a spice cake. I almost got the creme brule, but figured that, while it would've been awesome too, I can get creme brule at a number of places. But how often do you see date pudding on a menu?)

I had some of the mac and cheese left over, and just finished it off for dinner. It's the best meal I've had in a long time. I don't have the recipe to share (maybe I should try to figure out what was in it and give it a shot).

What's the best meal you've had? I had another meal in Bruges, Belgium that was incredible - scallop with truffles, pigeon for entree, then french toast with pineapple and cracked black pepper for dessert (spicy and sweet at the same time).

Friday Rant - Feeding corn to fish

2008-11-14T09:05:00.004-05:00

I just started reading The Omnivore's Dilemma, by Michael Pollan. It's a book rather in the same vein as Fast Food Nation, in that it's tracing the roots of our food system. Fast Food Nation focuses on fast food (no kidding, right?), whereas Pollan's book is focused more on what makes up our everyday food from the grocery store. And the answer to that is corn. And soybeans. When the price of one spikes, the other is used, in anything from cereal to frozen yogurt, beer to Cheez Whiz, coffee whitener to ketchup, soups to candies, cake mixes to gravy, syrups to hot sauces, mayonnaise to mustard, margarine to bologna, salad dressing to vitamins. That's right, corn's in everything.

But you'd never know it, because on the ingredients, it's listed as the following:
- modified or unmodified starch
- glucose syrup
- maltodextrin
- crystalline fructose
- asorbic acid
- lecithin
- dextrose
- lactic acid
- lysine
- maltose
- HFS and MSG
- polyols
- caramel color
- xanthan gum

All of these mean corn, processed in many different ways. They did a study comparing the levels of corn-consumption markers in Americans vs. Mexicans. Now, keep in mind that Mexicans eat about 40% corn in their diet via tortillas and the like. Americans eat about 7-8% of obvious corn in our diets. I say obvious because the levels of corn in our system far outstripped the levels of corn in the Mexicans' diets. Because pretty much anything we eat that's been processed in any way has some fraction of corn in it. Diet Coke? Corn. Ice cream? Corn. Meat? Corn.

What, what, meat?

That's where the corned fish comes in. (Little digression - I was interested to learn that corned beef has nothing to do with corn - "corn" used to mean any kind of grain, and so that included grains of salt).

Corn in this country is very inexpensive. In August, you can find ears of corn for $.50, and that's for the good stuff we eat straight. Number 2 corn is the corn used as components in other processed foods. This was helped along by the Nixon administration, which broke down the system FDR put in place for stabilizing the farming system and farmer's income vs. market prices. Now, there's so much corn on the market, the prices keep going down. But because the prices go down, the farmers plant more so they can harvest more and pay their bills. Which then depresses prices more. Vicious cycle.

So what do they do with all this corn? They take them to wet mills (basically, the mills where they turn them into components besides flour and starch). And quite a bit of the corn is turned into food for cattle (which is also mixed with protein, vitamins, and antibiotics). That's shipped off to the cattle mills.

Now the problem with feeding corn to cattle is this - cattle have evolved to eat grass. They are ruminants and their rumine processed grass well, not corn. The corn they eat makes their rumine highly acidic (normally they are acid neutral), much as our own stomachs are acidic. And when bacteria grows in their stomachs (such as e. coli), it grows much hardier and more resistant to acid, which then in turn can prove harmful or even fatal to us upon consumption. If the cattle were fed grass for only a month before slaughter, their rumines would be able to recover acid neutral enough to be much less of a danger to us (as far as e. coli).

At least they're not being fed pulverized cattle bone and brain and meal anymore (BSE scared that process out of us). But cattle meal isn't entirely out of the system - it's being fed to chickens and pigs. And chicken and pig meal is then fed back to the cattle, which seems to me to just be a round-about system of feeding cattle to cattle.

And now they're even engineering salmon to eat corn. Salmon! Unless I have my ecology really wrong, salmon have never even seen corn, never mind evolved on it.

All of the chemicals sprayed on the corn, then the chemicals and medicines poured into the cattle, the bacteria rampant in the abattoirs, all of that just makes me wonder what the hell we're doing. I mean, if you tinker with nature too much, it's bound to tinker right back, wouldn't you think? If we get too reliant on corn to the exception of other crops (as many farmers are one-crop exclusive now, as they never used to be), then what happens when the corn market finally goes flop?

In one of Michael Pollan's other books, The Botany of Desire, he talks about the tulip market in Holland a couple centuries ago. It started off as a simple trading of tulips, like in an everyday market. But fairly soon, it started to spiral up until they were trading in tulip futures, and the tulips became an idea rather than a reality (a farmer couldn't actually go to market and sell actual flowers, because everybody was buying futures, not flowers). And then it crashed.

I'm hoping that there's something we can do about this before it crashes. Whether that crash comes in the form of people getting sicker, or whether it's a financial crash of the farmers (and in turn the processors and packagers). Our market is doing terribly right now, but if the system of oversupply isn't corrected, I don't think it's going to get any better for the farmers once the rest of the system corrects itself. And what happens when the farmers are bankrupt? Do we start importing our food? Do we go back to square one, rebooting our food system? Am I being an alarmist?

How's about that for a damn-heavy Friday post! Any attempts to lighten this up are greatly appreciated! :)

Fun New Foods: Durian Fruit

2008-11-13T09:47:00.005-05:00

The main distinction about durian fruit is its notorious smell. It's a native of Asia, where the fruit is banned in public places, such as subways, malls, and hotels. That just piques my interest right there. Mother Nature created a fruit, which people actually eat, that's so noxious-smelling that it had to be banned in public places? Color me curious.

It's called "The King of Fruit." If I were a fruit, I'm not sure I'd want my king to be a ~~stinkypants~~ odor-challenged mega-fruit, but hey, to each their own, right?

Anthony Bourdain, the chef and food writer, described durian thusly "Its taste can only be described as...indescribable, something you will either love or despise. ...Your breath will smell as if you'd been French-kissing your dead grandmother."

Ok, so, perhaps not such a pleasant experience. But if it's that bad, then why do people eat it?! Perhaps it's like stinky cheese. Some of the best European cheese (don't get me started on the flavorless pasteurized cheese here in the States) smells as bad as your week-old sweaty socks. But tastes quite yummy when spread on bread or a cracker and eaten with relish (the emotion, not the food).

Hence a quote from a British traveler to Asia in 1599: "It is of such an excellent taste that it surpasses in flavor all the other fruits of the world."

Funny durian story involving a space suits, spray cans, and chastened hotel guests can be found here.

I find it amazing though, given how intermingled our senses of taste and smell are, that something that's quite that odiferous could turn into something quite so tasty. Maybe it's an acquired taste? Or maybe there's something in it that's just really tasty once eaten, just like there are some foods that smell great but then aren't so tasty (the roasted chestnuts they sell in the subway, for instance). But to some accounts, the durian flesh is almost like vanilla pudding, very creamy, and doesn't taste at all like the smell would suggest.

I've oft been curious about durian fruit. I've read about it in travelogues. I've seen it in the Super 88 (Chinese grocery store with tons of random international foods). I wouldn't have a problem buying some and trying it, because trying wacky new things is fun (I actually offered people Mexican-spiced dried worms at a party once, partly to see the looks on their faces. Only one person took me up on it).

But here's the thing, I have a really sensitive nose. So I don't want to put the durian fruit in my car, because the smell will stick around. I don't want to eat it outside, because I might get covered in the durian juice and then become stinky myself. I don't want to bring it home because then my condo will smell worse than the pig farms I've driven past in the countryside. So where do I eat it? If they offered it on a menu, I'd totally try some. But then, it would probably scare away all the customers, because they'd come in to the restaurant and then turn around and leave right away.

Maybe I should just wait until I finally manage to get to Asia and try it over there.

Have any of you tried durian fruit? If so, what was it like? If not, any inclination?

Boston Mania - Cool New Moves and Wackiness

2008-11-12T10:10:00.007-05:00

So yesterday was the overview of the conference, and man was it fun and exhausting at the same time! Today we get down to the nitty gritty, nuts and bolts, the stuff that wowed me, and the stuff that just made me go hmmmm.

1. Partner bent over rows. I've looked for a photo of this, but can't for the life of me find one. So I'll do my best to describe it. Person 1 lies down on the ground, 2 stand over them, one foot on each side (I'd say just about waist or rib-height on 1). 1 crosses their hands over their chest, tightens their core so that they are as stiff as a board. 2 reaches down in a squat, grabs their hands around 1's arms (removing all watches beforehand) and lifts 1 up towards them in a bent over row. Elbows stay in close to 2's sides to activate the back muscles, weight stays balanced over feet (no leaning forward), knees nice and bent to support weight on quads instead of low back. 1 is working all through the core muscles to keep herself straight as she's being picked up.

Note: I wouldn't actually do this in my group ex classes, because while very fun and a great exercise if done properly, there is too much margin for error. If 2 wasn't able to hold 1 and let go, 1 could bump her head on the ground. If 2 squatted improperly and took 1's full body weight on her back, she could injure her back. So, a great exercise for people who know what they're doing, or for personal training, not so much for group fitness.

2. Fireman's carry. One of the other volunteers showed me this one and man was it frightening! Basically, he reached down, put his arm under my right leg, draped me over his shoulders, and picked me up. It's very disconcerting to be hanging over someone's shoulders, more than five feet above the ground, while he's running, and the whole time you're chanting "don't drop me, don't drop me." For obvious reasons, not going to do this in my group fitness class. Probably wouldn't do it with personal training either, unless the trainee was a serious athlete.

3. Jump and catch. Ok, starting with a bosu, stand on the bosu and get comfortable on it. Now, you need a small ball a little larger than your fist, filled with sand (or whatever it is they use to weight them down. I think one broke open and it looked kind of like kitty litter or fertilizer inside). Reach down, touch your knee, then your ankle, then put the ball between your feet and stand up. Now, try jumping up off the bosu a little with the ball between your feet. No worries if it pops out (exercise to go chasing it!). The last level of craziness? Give a nice jump off the bosu, letting go of the ball with your feet so that it flies upward in the air towards your hands. Catch the ball while you're jumping and then land on the bosu. And don't fall off. I tried it once, and I was able to catch the ball, but not stick my landing. I would say this one takes a lot of practice, but hey, you're exercise while you're practicing, right?

4. Tag. Say what what? Tag? You mean, that game I played in recess when I was 9 years old? Yup. A couple different ways to do this one. You can put together a couple of steps and then have one person chase the other back and forth (without reaching across, that's cheating!). This works, but there's a major dizziness factor and possibility of tripping over the bench. Then there's group tag. Take a group of people, split them into two side of the room, spread out in lines facing each other. Choose two ITs, one from each side. They stand in the center. Now when you shout go, everyone runs across the room, and IT tries to tag them. When they get tagged, they have to drop and do pushups, or stay in place for jacks, or something like that. The rest of the people who made it across have to keep running across, avoiding the people in the middle as well as IT, until they're tagged. Game ends when everyone's done. People feel a little silly, but there are a lot of grins going on. I was planning to take it easy and get tagged, but then the adrenaline kicked in and I ran across three or four times until I was out of breath.

5. Sheriff vs. Outlaw. No, this isn't a naughty XXX game, this is another one of those silly cardio games that kick your lungs' ass (do lungs have asses? If they do, then consider them kicked). Minimum 4 people each team. Person 1 is the sheriff, 2 is the outlaw, 3 and 4 are the outlaw's buddies. 2-4 clasp hands (in a circle or triangle). The sheriff has to run around the circle to tag the sheriff (can't reach across the middle), and the outlaw's buddies have to protect him by shifting the circle laterally, always keeping the outlaw out of reach. Once the outlaw is caught (or 30 seconds is up), then 2 becomes the sheriff, 3 the outlaw, etc. Great game for kids too.

6. Cycling into the wind. I'm sure lots of cycling instructors already teach this kind of interval, but it was a new one for me. Since I'm not a road rider, I sometimes forget a bit to give parallels to what's going on on the road, but this is a great one. So imagine you're riding down the coastline. You have kind of heavy resistance on because there's a little bit of a headwind, but it's manageable. You're kicking it to the beat of the music, because hell it's so much easier that way. Then you turn a corner and there's a killer wind blowing in your face. Ok, so we're in the cycling room and there's no real wind, so how do I do that? You turn your gear up, but keep your cadence the same. So all of a sudden it's sooo much harder just like you smacked that wall of wind. But you don't want to slow down (because that's just cheating yourself because it's getting easier, and if you slow down too much with high resistance, you could end up with knee issues).

7. Kick butt jump rope. Or maybe I should say whip butt jump rope. Jump rope is one of the best exercises you can do for cardio. It's got one of the biggest bangs for your buck. And sure, it can be hard to keep it up, and it gets tangled in your feet. But if you've ever jumped rope for 30 or 60 seconds straight (if you're not used to training with it consistently), then you know what I'm talking about. Then you bring in funkier moves and in comes some problems. Like crossing your hands, bringing your elbows together in the center so that you jump through the crossed rope, then open it up again. All well and good, I was psyched when I was able to do this. Then I tried it again and didn't cross my arms all the way to the elbows. And what did I end up with? Major whip burn on my butt from the rope smacking it. Hard. Ouch.

8. Singing presenters. There's this one presenter who does awesome step classes. The first conference I ever went to, two years ago, I was really burned out on step that I really needed to change it up. She was teaching a vertical step class, which I took to heart and never went back. Two years later, I pretty much exclusively teach vertical. She teaches an awesome dancy step class. The odd thing is that during the cool down and stretch, she sings. She has music with just the instrumentals, and she sings along with it. She has a good voice, so it sounds fine. But I was so shocked the first time I heard it, it was all I could do not to bust out laughing. I was used to it by this go round, but it's still bizarre every time I see it.

9. Ball punch. Person 1 holds a big stability ball in their hands. 2 punches the ball (tightening through core), nice fast rhythm. Then both 1 and 2 shuffle to one side, exchange. Then 1 punches ball while 2 is holding it. Shuffle back the other way. Lateral movement is great for cardio, punching is great for shoulders, back, and arms, as well as core (since you're rotating through your core to add power to the punch).

10. Bosu partner cross. Two people share one bosu. Then face perpendicular, standing to the side of the bosu. 1 crosses over the top of the bosu several times. When done, they say "cross." Then 2 crosses over. The person on the floor can't go until they hear "cross." Then you reduce the number of crosses to no more than 4, or 3, or 2. It's good because it keeps you on your toes, you never know when they're going to say cross, so you have to work on reaction time, and you get a leg workout in going over the top.

There was so much more I learned at the conference, but these were some of the different and new ones that stood out.

Boston Mania - Get your move on!

2008-11-11T09:46:00.008-05:00

So Boston Mania was this past weekend. This is a fitness conference held by SCW fitness in several cities throughout the year (Philadelphia, Dallas, Chicago, San Francisco, Orlando, Atlanta, Boston). The conference is Friday-Sunday, with pre-conference workshops on Wednesday and Thursday (pre-con can be anything from personal training to tai chi, yoga to gliding). This was my schedule (I was volunteering for free admission):

Wednesday 5p-9p - volunteer shift, stuffing binders
Thursday 7a-1:30p - volunteer shift, stuffing binders
Thursday 6p-7p - volunteer meeting
Friday 8a-6p
9a-11a - Dynamic Sport Warm-Up for Strength and Power (bosu)
11a - turnaround
12p-1:30p - Schwinn Cycling Class Design in No Time
1:30p - turnaround
2p-3:45p - Bosu Skills and Drills
3:45p - turnaround
4p-5:30p - The Step in Between (step aerobics)
5:30p - turnaround
Saturday 6:15a-6p
6:15a - turnaround
7a-8:45a - Get to the Core with Circuit Training
8:45a - turnaround
9a-11a - Never Mind Aerobics Here's Punk Rope (jump rope)
11a - turnaround
12p-1:30p - Bosu Complete Total Bosu Sculpt
1:30p - turnaround
2p-3:45p - Sports Performance Boot Camp 2
3:45p - turnaround
4p-5:30p - Step by Numbers (step aerobics)
5:30p - turnaround
Sunday 6:15a-2p
6:15a - turnaround
7a-8:45a - Group Xtreme (boot camp)
8:45a - turnaround
9a-11a - Cardio Crazy (medicine ball, gliders, step circuit)
11a - turnaround
12p-1:30p - Peace Love and Step
1:30p - turnaround

Ok, so what's all this turnaround business, you ask? Basically, there are different workshops going on all the time. So at the same time that step class was happening, there's bosu in another room, spin in another, yoga in another, etc etc. But what's in that room one hour might be different the next. So we're the muscle that goes in and takes those benches away and puts out all the handweights or sets up the circuit. We put the chairs out for a chair-striptease class (yes, that was on the schedule), and we carry all the stability balls from one end of the conference to the other, trying not to knock people out of the way as we go (when you have a ball under each armpit, you're a LOT wider than normal). It's hard work, but the awesome thing is that once you're done with turnaround, you can attend whatever workshop you want without having to have registered for it.

I took soooo many notes, it's rather daunting to have to go through them and decipher them now. Some of them I was writing them so fast, that when I go back and look, I either have trouble deciphering what I've written, or I look at something like "jump flick feet pivot twist" and wonder how the hell I thought that would make sense to me later. But the majority of my notes are great, and I added tons of new choreography to my repertoire. Plus, I bought a bunch of new equipment!

Ladder: This cool circuit training (or personal training) device is great for cardio. You can run through it laterally (like in the picture), run front, hop front, hop side, hopscotch, jump in and out with both feet (like a snake). My gym has hardwood floors, and the ladder slides, so I just mounted it on a couple yoga mats and it was good to go.

Jump ropes: jump roping is the cardio exercise you can really get the biggest bang for your buck. Jump for 30 seconds and your heart rate is already starting to spike. Even if you keep catching it on your feet, what jumping time you get is still going to help. And the more you do it, the better you'll get at it, until you'll be saying "that was 2 minutes already, really?" (side note: at the present moment, I suck at jumping rope).

Resistance tubing: the great thing about these tubes is that they stretch, so the more you pull on them, the harder it gets. Unlike regular handweights, which are the same all the way up and down, the tubes increase the resistance the higher you pull. So they are damn hard. I've heard that body builders use them to pump up their muscles right before a competition (not that we're going all hard core like that in class). We used to have these at the gym, but they up and took themselves out somewhere else.

Cones: The best deal at the whole conference! Power Systems was offering a conference special of $1 per cone (they're little ones, but hey, I don't need anything fancy). So I can use these for running and changing direction drills. One thing we don't train often is ankle strength, we either run forward, or move laterally, but unless we play basketball, we don't often stop and start and move at angles. So one option with the cones is to set them up in two columns of four cones, then run zig zag between them, with a full stop on the outside foot at each cone before changing direction. Lots of other options, too, must brainstorm.

I wanted to get some kettlebells, but can't see myself using them anytime soon in class (they'd be damn heavy to carry from my locker!), and I also really wanted these cute long cones (I can't find a picture of them on their website). Basically, picture one of those bright orange cones, but stretch it out so that it's the shape of a really thin tent, and either 6" or 12" tall. They were totally awesome. But being so much more expensive than cones, I figured I'd stick with what I had for now.

More to come tomorrow on the content of the workshops - some of the wackiest goings-on, or my favorite new stuff I've learned!

Monday Recipe - Food for Exhaustion

2008-11-10T10:37:00.003-05:00

So Boston Mania was this weekend. More details to come on that (I may expand Exercise Wednesday to Tuesday and Wednesday this week). One of the by products, apart from excitement over all the new stuff I learned, is absolute exhaustion.

I took it easy on Friday, but then over Saturday and Sunday I went to enough Step (I can't take it easy in step) and boot camp and bosu strength classes that by the time this morning rolled around, my gluts were seriously complaining about climbing any stairs at all. A good kind of pain though!

Saturday night, I got home around 7:30. I didn't feel like cooking, but I didn't have anything defrosted and ready to go in my fridge (thinking ahead? Ahem...not so much this weekend). So this was my dinner:

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Pork chops with sweet potato fries and brussels sprouts
1 pork chop, fat cut off
dash of salt, pepper, ginger powder, and red pepper flakes
1 sweet potato, cut into thick fry-shapes
2 handfuls of brussels sprouts, cut in half
olive oil
salt and pepper

I put all the sweet potatoes and brussels sprouts in a bowl, sprinkled olive oil, salt and pepper over them until fairly well covered (but not slathered), and then spread them out on a baking tray. On another tray (I use a glass pie-plate), I put the pork sprinkled with spices. Pop all of it in the oven at the same time and jump in the shower while it cooks. The only thing I'd do differently would be to not cook the sprouts as much, because by the time the fries and pork were cooked, the sprouts were fairly mushy.

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Sunday, I was even more tired (as you can imagine, since my first workshop (at 7a) was Group Xtreme). I got home around 2. Made some pasta with butter, grated asiago (no, I didn't grate it myself), and some jalapeno chicken sausage.

By the time dinner rolled around, I just didn't have the energy to cook up some protein on the stove. Some I made some kale, then I had some steamed edamame (I just put frozen edamame in a bowl with some water, cover with paper towel, and then cook in the microwave for 2-3 minutes). Then I had some cherry apple crisp for dessert (I did defrost this the other day, so it was good to go).

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Wilted Kale
1 bunch of kale, stems removed, and ripped into bite-sized pieces
olive/grapeseed oil
garlic
lemon juice
red pepper flakes

Put all the kale in a pot and add oil (I used olive oil steeped in garlic, but you could just put the oil with a couple cloves separately). Wilt down a bit. Add lemon juice (a couple squirts), red pepper flakes, and then salt and pepper if desired.

I ate the whole thing, but it could easily be 2 or 3 servings if you're eating it as a side dish. It makes about one heaping bowl of kale.

The Wonderful World of Snacks

2008-11-06T10:00:00.004-05:00

So I'm at the Boston Mania fitness conference today and (surprise surprise!) one of my big focuses is food. I'm going to be running around all day setting stuff up, lifting and carrying, trying to stay hydrated, and trying not to get so hungry I eat my shirt. Normally, my morning snack at work is a slice of multi-grain date toast with a thin spread of nutella, and my afternoon snack is the same toast with a thin spread of all natural creamy peanut butter. But not having a toaster puts a kibbotch on this plan. So what's a girl to do?

Healthy Snacks on the Go

1. Plain nuts (my faves are almonds and walnuts). Roasted and salted adds some unhealthy fat and a big dose of sodium. And frankly, I think they taste better plain (except peanuts, I don't like plain peanuts).

2. Dried fruit like apricots, cherries, cranberries, or goldenberries. They're sweet, but they don't have tons of calories or fat in them. And they're great paired with nuts. When I was in Cairo in May, I went through a big bag of almonds and another of apricots over the week.

3. Snack bars. The South Beach snack bars have a good amount of protein and taste pretty good, though they do have a bunch of those unpronouncable chemical ingredients I don't like so much. Kashi makes a cherry dark chocolate bar that's very yummy and have the whole grains to keep me full for longer (wow, now I sound like a commercial. I swear, Kashi hasn't paid for product placement....unless there's a Kashi rep reading this who wants to...).

Those three are really my go-to foods. I've also in the past brought oatmeal pancakes with me (dry oatmeal blended with cottage cheese, eggs, and spices and then cooked up into pancake form) and that works ok, but they're cold and rather dry, so not as appealing a snack.

Then there are the times when I'm not on the go.

Everyday snacks

1. The aforementioned toast with PB/jam/nutella/cheese. Protein generally tends to fill me up for longer, which is why I have the PB toast in the afternoon instead of the morning.

2. Fruit. Some people swear by having an apple/banana/orange for a snack. Me? That might keep my stomach busy for a half hour (if that), but that's about it! While tasty, I'm going to be left very soon noshing on something else. And the second snack is not likely to be more fruit.

3. Cookies/candy. Not a healthy option, but sometimes that's just what the body craves. The sugar will spike up your blood sugar and then drop you on your ass, but man is it tasty while you're eating it (then once you crash, you can eat some more). I went into a chocolate shop the other day and almost bought some elephant and donkey election truffles for a party, until I realized they were $3.50 a pop.

4. Protein bars. A healthier (and longer lasting feeling of full) option to candy is a protein bar coated in chocolate or vanilla or what have you. Because the protein in it will help you feel full longer. But they also tend to have lots of calories and hidden fat, as well as all those pesky unnatural ingredients. I used to eat them much more often (every day for my snacks, in fact), until I realized just what they had in them.

What do you snack on?

Boston Mania, here I come!

2008-11-05T10:00:00.005-05:00

(Geez...this photo gives me nightmares of face planting on the floor...)

It's that time of year again! Every November (for the last three), I've attended Boston Mania, a fitness convention held by SCW Fitness. The first year (2006), I was a full-fledged attendee. In other words, I paid a boatload of money to get in, as well as bought fun goodies like music and clothes on top of that, and it was a pretty streamlined, easy experience.

The great thing about it that year in particular was that I was getting seriously burned out at the gym. I was teaching 2-3 step classes a week and was bored of my combos, my format, and was grasping for something, anything, different I could do. I thought about teaching double step (using two benches instead of one) as my regular class, and started creating combos for that. Then I went to Boston Mania 2006. Ooooh boy did my world turn upside down. Or rightside up. I discovered vertical step. Step is normally taught with the bench horizontal (long end to the front of the room), but vertical is when you turn the short end to the front of the room. And I don't know what it is about vertical, but I don't get bored of it. Granted, I'm always coming up with new combos, or I do get tired of the old ones. But I've now been teaching vertical longer than I taught horizontal regularly, and I'm still loving it. Whenever I do teach horizontal, it just doesn't seem the same. Kind of like when you eat when you're really hungry and everything tastes great (vertical), and when you're not feeling well and everything tastes like cardboard (horizontal).

I also discovered gliding, which is a super-awesome way of working all your muscles low impact, and not just the major muscles but all the supporting ones too. Especially legs and abs. Lots and lots of legs and abs. I was a major gliding convert for the longest time. Until I finally came to terms with the fact that I'd lost about 80% of the members in my class (it used to be weight lifting and I'd changed it to gliding). So now I teach boot camp. But I do occasionally throw in a gliding exercise with the boot camp.

Boston Mania 2007 I volunteered, so I didn't have to pay the attendee fee, but I did have to work the event. I set up all the equipment before and after each workshop, did setup on Wednesday night and Thursday afternoon, and I got to attend all the workshops for free. It's awesome because I don't have to shell out the big bucks (except for new equipment, music, and such, but that's at a conference discount anyway), I get to attend all the workshops I want to, and I don't have to pack stuff up on Sunday. Because seriously, after four days of all that, the last thing I want to do with my Sunday afternoon is pack everything into trucks. Last year, I got a massive, body-shaking, throat-wrenching cold after the conference because I ran myself too ragged. So this year I'm going to go to sleep early, take my vitamin C, and take it easy (I'm there to learn new moves, not for the exercise).

Boston Mania 2008, I'm so looking forward to it! They have several boot camp workshops on the schedule, which I can't wait for. My boot camp cardio is getting pretty stale (how many different kinds of jacks and lunges and kicks and punches can you really do, if you only have 2 minutes at a time of cardio?), and I'm always looking for new step and weight lifting tips. I have a new combo for step that I can't figure out for the life of me how to teach. So I'll see some old friends I met last year and hopefully they can help me break it down.

Can I share with you the craziness of my schedule over the next few days?

Wednesday 5p-10p (last year they let us out at 6:30, and I'm really hoping the same this year because there's a French dinner I want to go to)
Thursday 6:30a-1:30p
Thursday meeting 6p-8p
Friday 8a-6p (or 7p if I want to go to the special workshop)
Saturday 6:15a-6p
Sunday 6:15a-1p

I'm so sleeping in on Monday. Expect me at work around 11a, 10:30 if I'm lucky. Next Wednesday I'll tell you guys about all the cool stuff I actually encountered at the conference! To warn you though, I'll probably still be hopped up on a massive conference high, so you might see bouncy happy faces flitting through my blog...

Voting and Vegetarian Festivals

2008-11-04T09:32:00.006-05:00

Attending a vegetarian festival

I went to a vegetarian festival this past weekend. I'm not a vegetarian in the slightest, though I do eat vegetarian food frequently. I haven't had much experience with vegan food. So I went to the festival with a vegan friend and her vegan sister. It was an experience! Some of the interesting stuff -

1. It's possible to make some really tasty vegan food. I was most surprised by the vegan cake. Because I couldn't figure out how you make a cake without using butter, milk, and eggs. But what with new technologies, they now have butter made out of oil instead of dairy, and some of those cakes came out really well. I honestly wouldn't know the difference.

2. DO NOT think that if you're eating a soy slim jim flavored with "pepperoni" flavor, then you're not going to need to wash your mouth out immediately afterwards. Ok, maybe if you're a veggie/vegan, and you haven't had meat in a while, then it might taste better (kind of like if you don't eat a particular food for a long time even the worst version of it starts to taste good). It managed to be sweet and chemically pepperoni flavored at the same time. Blech.

3. Goldenberries are AWESOME! Ok, so apparently I'm the only one who thinks so. They're also called gooseberries or incanberries. They're reallllllllly tart, like the tartest grapefruit you've ever eaten mixed with something sweeter like papaya, and they look like big round golden raisins. I gave a taste I think to about three people and all of them looked at me like I'd officially lost my mind for having spent $4 on a small bag of them. Hey, more for me, right?

4. I do not understand the fake meat the Chinese stand was cooking up. I'm trying, but I can't remember what it's called, begins with a G. It's basically soy, but cooked with "meat" flavor, for those people who enjoy the taste of meat without the animal-killing properties. It doesn't taste like meat, I just can't quite get around the weirdness of it.

5. The tofu empanada was incredible! The best thing there, by a long shot. It was spicy and it tasted real, not like it was full of substitutes.

6. Hemp milk, while intriguing, really is not all that good. If I were to go vegan, I'd definitely stick with soy milk. I have, actually, tried hemp milk in the past and managed to get it down in the chocolate flavor. But this was original flavor. I can't really describe what it tasted like, but it wasn't very good.

7. The sense of community there was awesome. I swear my vegan friend knew half the people there. It's really a bonding experience, how people come together over food and its advocacy.

8. Teese is the new vegan cheese. There's also Sheese, but that booth had already run out, so I didn't get to try any. I tried the Teese just for the hell of it. I didn't expect much. It was nacho-style cheese, in a big squeeze pump. It wasn't near as bad as I expected, and if I were a vegan I might like it. But I've never been a fan of nacho cheese, even when it's full dairy.

9. Vegetarian or vegan doesn't necessarily mean all natural and healthy. Sure, there are no animal fats, so not as much saturated fat, so that's a plus. But I feel like in making a lot of that food, they're adding quite a few unnatural elements to it to make it tastier. When I cook, I use as many natural ingredients as I can, and I don't buy much prepackaged food at all. So while I understand the abhorrence some people have of meat and animal-based products, my personal abhorrence is for chemicals and unnatural ingredients.

10. There was a great variety! I was surprised by just how much vegan food there was, and I was pleased because I've never really tried that much of it. I tried chinese food, latin food, pastries, "milk," "cheese," dried fruit, power bars, and I'm sure many other things I'm not remembering. It was awesome in it's variety and it's great that the movement has come to a point where there can be such variety. Vegetarianism isn't fringe anymore, it's mainstream.

I'm glad I went and it was a great experience. It didn't change my mind about eating meat, but I now know about a greater variety of vegetarian foods, and I bought some cookbooks there as well (Jamaican and Greek).

Getting on the Soapbox

I voted this morning. Considering the reports I've heard about insanely long lines and people queuing up at 4am, I'm incredibly lucky that my line was only about 15-20 minutes long. My ballot was pretty easy to understand too, just take the marker and fill in the bubbles. Some of you might remember that whole big butterfly ballot brou-ha-ha from 2000 (in the link, take a look at the 3rd image from the top). I've heard lots of people say that the people were stupid who voted for Buchanan instead of Gore because of the butterfly ballot. But let me tell you, I almost voted for Buchanan until I realized at the last minute my mistake and punched the right hole. And I was in a swing state at that point, so it mattered.

What I don't get is the people who've said they don't believe in voting. I understand the negative reaction to the 2000 election, when the popularly elected candidate didn't actually win the election. But how often does that happen, really? If you're in a swing state, then I find it socially irresponsible not to vote, because you really do make a difference. If you're in a state which always goes in one direction (like me, for instance, in MA), you vote does still count. It won't come down to the wire like it would in Ohio or Missouri or Virginia. But the more votes cast and the better we get a view of what the American people really wants. Either it's really close (like 2000) and we're biting our nails watching the returns, or those extra votes just affirm that the president elect has the decided support of the people.

But hey, if you're not into voting, then you're not interested in complaining about any of the decisions the ensuing government makes, right? I'm not gonna twist your arm, but I will look at you askance if you then hold them to account. Because our society runs on elections. The system may not be perfect, but it's what we've got. So until we have a system of direct popular election of president, we still need to hit the polls even if we think the electoral system might leave something to be desired.

Getting off the soapbox now

Monday Recipe - Sweet Potato Chili and Quinoa Risotto

2008-11-03T09:54:00.005-05:00

Thanks to a massive plumbing problem, I was home on Friday, and since the plumbers were done by 2:30 (after having fished some lovely paper towels out of the pipes, whatwhat?), I had time to go to Target and grocery shopping. I had been concerned I wasn't going to have enough time for everything this weekend, and the plumbing (while a hassle of epic proportions) made my life easier.

So my Halloween involved a spinning class, laundry, and cooking. I made two recipes. One was a sweet potato chili inspired by a post on Cranky Fitness a while back, and the other inspired by Leah from her comments in my weird food combo post last week.

And I know you all look at me strangely when I type something like this, but I haven't tried the chili yet. I cooked up a big pot of it, and it finished cooking at 11:30p, so I put it in the fridge, and then was so busy this weekend never got a chance to try it. But I'm having some for lunch this week (and sorry in advance to my co-workers reading this...I'll try not to stink you all out of the office...)

Quinoa "Risotto"
5 medium vine-ripened tomatoes, cut into small pieces
1/2-1 lbs chicken, cut into small pieces
1/2C feta (approximately)
quinoa (not too much, just enough to soak up the tomato juices)
dash of cinnamon
dash of salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes

Above quantities are estimated, I didn't actually measure them when I was cooking.

Put oil in a pot and cook chicken until cooked on the outside. Add tomatoes and cook until the tomatoes release their liquid. Add quinoa. Cook until the quinoa has soaked up the tomato juices and become chewy instead of crunchy. Add feta and spices.

The quinoa binds it together a bit and makes it feel like it's risotto, but it's a whole grain, healthy version of it. It's also very tasty when reheated.

Sweet Potato Chili
1 lb beef and or lamb (I used 1/2 of each) - optional
1 tbsp olive oil
1 medium onion, diced (or food processed, I love my food processor)
1 tsp red pepper flakes
2 cups chicken broth (or vegetable broth if you're going vegetarian)
1 large sweet potato, peeled and cut into 3/4 inch cubes
2 zucchinis, diced
2 cans diced tomatoes
2 cans cooked kidney/black beans (I used one of each)
6 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 tsp cumin
1/4 tsp dried oregano
Chopped fresh cilantro - optional (I forgot to buy it, so I didn't add it)

Heat olive oil in heavy pan over medium high heat. Add onion and saute until golden brown, about 5 minutes. Add the meat and pepper flakes and stir until cooked on the outside. Add 1 cup of the broth and the sweet potato. Cover pan and reduce heat. Simmer until sweet potato is almost tender, about 10 minutes.

Add tomatoes (with the juice), beans, garlic and spices. Add the zucchinis and the rest of the broth. Simmer uncovered until the chili thickens and the sweet potato is very tender. Adjust seasonings as needed. Add cilantro to the bowl when serving. You could also add a sprinkling of parmesan if so desired.

Friday Rant - The fat tax

2008-10-31T08:56:00.003-04:00

Back in August, Alabama released their plan to impose a fat tax on state employees. Basically, each employee will get a medical screening, which includes a BMI test (and we know my feelings about that) and medication screenings. Those considered obese or who have high blood pressure, high glucose, or high cholesterol will have to pay an extra $25/month starting in 2011.

Now, Alabama is the second highest in obesity in the United States, so there's obviously something that needs to be done. And obesity does put a strain on our healthcare system, so it does seem logical that the people who are asking more of the system put more into it (just like I think that people who make a ton more money should pay a proportionally higher rate of taxes).
My problem with this is in determining the line. I mean, sure, there are plenty of people out there who are obese because they eat too much unhealthy food in too-large servings and who don't exercise enough. But there's more of a gray area.

What about the people who are obese because they eat fattening food because it's cheaper? They don't have a lot of money, so they buy what they can afford. The WHO proposed a fat tax on unhealthy foods a few years ago (foods like potato chips, butter, cheese, meat and whole milk). And while I would be a hypocrite in saying that this isn't a good idea (because I think higher taxes on cigarettes is a good idea), it also isn't going to solve the problem. Because the fatty food is going to get more expensive, but the healthy food isn't going to be less expensive, and it will end up leaving poor people with even less ability to buy any food.

Then there are the people who do legitimately have health issues which push them over the edge into obesity. I know this is often an overused excuse, but there are times when it is valid. And on top of whatever other medical issues they're having, they're going to be charged extra?

Now, you might be saying, $300/year really isn't that much money, especially if you're disproportionally impacting the health care system. But I think that, in Alabama especially, a good proportion of those who are obese have gotten that way because of the economic issues and the lack of nutrition education. So making them pay more is just going to make the problem worse (it's all fine and good to say that they'll be motivated to eat healthier so they don't have to pay that extra assessment every time, but honestly I think it'll just make them mad). And trying to get them to change their ways with a fee isn't going to help if they haven't been taught a more healthy way to eat. It's like turning someone out into a field, telling them to grow food, saying you'll charge them rent every month on the land, but not teaching them the process of farming. It's rather silly.

Sure, there are plenty of people who know they aren't eating healthy. It doesn't take a course in nutrition to know that hamburgers and fries aren't the best choice for your arteries. But learning how to cook tasty recipes that make you want to eat healthy (rather than plain grilled chicken or constant salads), that's another thing all together.

You ate WHAT with that?

2008-10-30T09:55:00.005-04:00

When I was in elementary school, we went through a phase where we'd put together two foods that didn't normally go together and eat them. It was the great lunchtime competition - who could create the best (and wackiest) mixture. I know we had a name for it, but can't for the life of me remember what it was, more than 20 years later (though I did just email a bunch of my old classmates to ask...go Facebook!).

One of my favorites (though not terribly wacky) was apple slices and brownies together. Maybe I should take that inspiration and make some brownies with apple slices in it (or maybe someone's already tried it, if so, give a shout out).

This evolved into playing spoons, where at sleepover parties, we'd raid the fridge and squirt a random array of various stuff from the fridge onto a spoon and then make someone eat it. And since honor was involved, we almost always did eat it. I don't remember exactly what went into it, since it was a rather random, grab-the-bottles-and-squirt kind of thing. But, for example, it might be a mixture of jam, capers, oil, tabasco, and mustard. One time we even subjected a friend's father to this, and put toothpaste as one of the ingredients in his spoon. He was a good sport and played along, with a minimum of face-pulling at what had to have been a disgusting flavor, though he wasn't happy when he found out there was toothepaste in it.

I also recall a birthday party of mine where the main order of business once the parents went to sleep was the playing of spoons. And come morning, there was stuff spilled all over the bottom of the closet and the sink was entirely clogged. I have no idea what caused all the mess, but let me tell you, my parents were not happy with that one!

Back to the not-quite-so-gross-but-still-strange combo foods. When I was little (I'm talking 4 years old) I used to love mayonnaise and mustard sandwiches. Just bread, mayo and mustard. I then grew out of that and didn't eat mustard for another 20 years, and am still very picky about it (dijon only). Mayo I will only eat as an ingredient (like in deviled eggs) but will never spread it on sandwiches. I guess I used up my mayo and mustard quotient when I was 4.

I was a very picky eater, especially as a teen. I could have listed on my fingers what veggies I would eat (salad veggies, but not the funky ones, just lettuce, tomato, cucumber, and then peas and corn and green beans. I'm not kidding, that's it). But one of the quirks I had was that when we had mashed potatoes and peas with dinner, I'd make a volcano shape with the potatoes, put all the peas in, and then mix it evenly together. I never ate them separately.

Even now, I'm all about the mixing of foods. When I have a protein, a carb, and a veggie on my plate, I'll take small bites of each in my mouth at the same time, to get a full complex spectrum of dinner, rather than just eating one regular-sized bite of each. The food seems more interesting that way.

What kinds of foods have you mixed in strange and different ways? Did you even play spoons?

Goodbye 20s, Hello 30s!

2008-10-29T09:33:00.003-04:00

I figure this is the perfect opportunity to look back on the last 10 years and give thanks for the awesome stuff that's happened. That way I ring in the next 10 on a positive note! So I'm going to list 10 awesome things from this last decade - events which were important to me and made a difference in my life.

So here they are (and they're in order of what occurred to me, the numbering isn't some sort of David Letterman-style ranking system):

1. Board game parties with my friends - we've shared lots o' food, drink, and laughs over the last couple years. Whenever a party's over, it leaves me wanting to schedule another one for the very next week. I love all my awesome friends! :)

2. Walking my Dad down the aisle when he and Steph got married last year.

3. Living in France - I left for Calais to teach English about two weeks after 9-11. The French welcomed me in to their school and their lives. Being able to speak French on a daily basis energizes me like an endless battery, and the fact that the French system has awesomely built in so much vacation time meant that I could travel all around Europe during the 7 weeks of vacation (in 8 months) and all the long weekends I had during my time there.

4. Traveling - I've had the wonderful opportunity in the past few years to go to Toronto for a wedding, Paris twice on vacation, and Cairo just this year on vacation. Cairo especially was fascinating, just because it's the most exotic place I've ever been. It's full of places you see in books and movies, but don't seem quite real until you're standing beside them with your mouth open. I even got to walk down into a pyramid. Bartering at the market has to be one of the highlights.

5. Moving back to Boston - What I really appreciated about St Louis is that living there exposed me to people with a lot of different viewpoints than my own (especially politically speaking). Having grown up in liberal-land (and being very liberal myself), I feel like my sense of the world was enriched by being able to understand the perspectives of a completely different group. That said, I love Boston so much more! The colors are more vibrant here, I'm closer to my family, and the activities just seem so much more prevalent and interesting.

6. Teaching group fitness - If you'd asked me 10 years ago whether I'd ever get up on a microphone in front of a group of people and led an exercise class, I would've thought you were seriously smoking something. When I started learning how to teach, I thought my heart would pop right out of my chest, it was beating so hard. But eventually, I learned that the anticipation of teaching class was so much more nerve-wracking than actually teaching. Now that I'm used to it, I think nothing of grabbing that mic and spouting out aerobics jargon. I think that I was already headed towards a higher sense of self-confidence anyway, but teaching fitness definitely kick-started it. I'm no longer the quiet girl in class!

7. My friends - this kind of goes along with #1, but just in general, I've found an amazing group of friends, and whether we're hanging out over dinner, or movies, or whatever, I always enjoy their company.

8. My family - love 'em all, for their support with everything, from emotional support to helping me buy my condo, to just being their awesome selves.

9. Buying my condo - it may be a shoebox, but it's my shoebox, and I managed to avoid all that predatory lending rigamarole. The first awesome thing about having my own place was being able to build (with my father's help) floor to ceiling book shelves. Damn it if they're not full to overflowing! Off to IKEA for more bookshelves...

10. Food! - ok, so this probably seemed like a given on this, my food blog. But now that I've learned how to cook, and I cook often and with local tasty ingredients, food has become a big part of my life. Whether it's discussing it with you guys on my blog, filling my freezer with homemade frozen dinners, cooking for a party, eating out at restaurants, finding out healthy alternatives, making seasonal recipes, or what have you, it's been a journey.

Fun New Foods: Stevia

2008-10-28T09:34:00.005-04:00

I don't know about you, but I have a major sweet tooth. As evidenced by the fact that I just downed three mint chocolate cookies and some sweetened hot tea (we're having cookie mondays at work, and a batch of cookies just came in today instead). But then, I want to be healthy. So I'm always looking for ways to give something the appearance of sweet without the calories of sugar.

For my daily cup of tea, I normally use Splenda (made out of Sucralose). Splenda has no (or very little) calories, and doesn't have as many negative effects that saccharin and aspartame have (digression: one of my favorite sodas growing up was Tab (aspartame), especially drunk while eating a ham and cheese sub with lettuce, toasted. I once gave a friend in college a Tab to try (my mother sent them out to me), and was accused of trying to poison him).

Back to topic, Splenda. I like Splenda because it blends better than sugar (which just sits at the bottom, so when you start drinking it's not sweet and then it makes your teeth hurt at the bottom). But the part of me that likes all natural foods and ingredients (farmer's market anyone?) doesn't like it so much. It's made from real sugar, so it's a bit better, in my mind, than Sweet n' Low or Equal. But it's still not all natural.

In walks Stevia. I found this at Trader Joe's and figured I'd try it. It does, after all, say "100% Natural" right on the package, and it's calorie free and sugar free.

Wait wait, what? Sugar free? What the hell is it then?

It's made of rice maltodextrin, stevia extract and silica. Stevia extract is actually an herb native to Paraguay. It's not technically a sweetener, it can only be sold in the US as a dietary supplement. Its extracts have about 300 times the sweetness of sugar.

So why isn't it mainstream, if it's all natural and so very very sweet? Well, it seems there's a bit of a health controversy. Some studies have shown that it serves as a liver mutagen, others have proven that it's harmless. Some studies have shown that it increases insulin sensitivity in rats, and promotes insulin production (reducing the effect of diabetes), while some human studies have shown it to reduce hypertension and others have shown that it has no effect on hypertension. The WHO's study found no carcinogenic activity with Stevia and that it might help with hypertension and diabetes, but that further study was needed to determine dosage.

So basically, studies done on rats aren't as relevant as studies done on humans. And a study done on one human isn't going to be relevant for all of us. That Stevia will help one person's diabetes could mutate someone else's liver, you never really can tell in the great lottery of science (you just go on the results of large randomized trials, which are never 100% effective).

At this point, there doesn't seem to be much evidence that it's bad for you, and there is some evidence that it's good for you. So it could be a good alternative.

However, I can't get past the taste. It definitely is sweeter than sugar, but the taste isn't as innocuous. It isn't purely sweet. There's another flavor behind it, that can interact with whatever it is you're drinking/eating it with. I can't really quantify it any better than that, but I'd recommend trying some and finding out whether it's your kind of thing.

Monday Recipe - Partying in a new decade!

2008-10-27T09:35:00.005-04:00

As some of you already know, I'm turning 30 on Wednesday. So this past Saturday was my big party, and this being me, I ended up cooking all day. I'm listing the recipes below (but keep in mind that I'm winging it off memory).

For those of you who came to the party, thanks for coming! I had a great time (well, apart from the migraine, but at least that went away eventually), and I hope you did too!

The Asian meatballs disappeared right quick, and the orzo soon after. I heard some people liked the falafel (I wasn't a big fan, but part of that I think was because I didn't add enough couscous, so the spices were way too strong). One of my longtime favorites is the stuffed grape leaf recipe.

Fruity wine
For a yummy (and antioxidant-full) cocktail, mix a half glass of white wine with blueberry-pomegranate juice. It's like fruit juice with an alcohol kick.

Orzo feta with cherry tomatoes
1 lb orzo, cooked al dente and cooled
24 oz cherry tomatoes, halved (that's about 3 pints, I think)
6T marjoram, minced (this is about one of those small spice containers-worth)
3C feta
2/3C green onions, sliced thinly
4T dijon mustard
1/2C lemon juice
1/2C olive oil
Salt
2 chicken breasts, cooked and torn into small pieces (optional)

Whisk marjoram, green onions, mustard, lemon juice, olive oil, and salt in a bowl. Take 4T of the mixture and add it to a bowl with the cherry tomatoes, mixing to coat thoroughly. Pour the rest of the marinade over the orzo and feta, stirring to mix. Add the tomatoes. Add chicken if desired.

Asian Meatballs
2lbs ground beef
1 medium onion, chopped finely
6 green onions, sliced finely
4t sesame seeds
1/2C soy sauce (I can't remember exactly if this quantity is right, but it's somewhere around there)

Mix ingredients in a large bowl. Shape into 1" meatballs and put on a non-stick (or greased) pan and broil for 10-15 minutes.

Stuffed Grape Leaves (Dolmathes)

2 jars grapevine leaves, washed

1 1/2 lbs ground beef and/or lamb

2 1/2 t salt (optional)

Pepper

2T vegetable oil

2 onions, chopped

1C rice, raw

Juice from 1 1/2 lemons

1/4C mint

1/2C water

1/4C butter (optional)

2C chicken broth

Mix meat, oil, onions, rice, lemon juice, mint, water, salt and pepper in a large bowl. To roll the leaves, take a grape leaf and lay it out flat, vein-side up. take a small dollop of the meat mixture and put it at the base of the leaf. Fold the two sides on to the center, then roll away from you to make a small log-shaped roll. Make sure the leaf is not torn, and that it is rolled tightly (if it isn't, it may explode apart while cooking).

In a large pot, line the bottom with layers of grape leaves. Make sure they are packed as tightly together as possible (if they're loose, again, they may explode in cooking). To make more room in the pot, smoosh them together as closely as possible. Then start another layer. Pour in chicken broth until the leaves are just barely covered and add the pats of butter if desired. Bring to a simmer and cook for 45-60 minutes (or until rice is cooked through). Grape leaves freeze easily.

Oven-baked Falafel
I found this recipe on this wonderful food blog, Food Stories. The main mistake I made was that I didn't use enough couscous (it really looked like A LOT of couscous when I was making it, so I decided to wing it to add less). The great thing about this is that falafel is normally fried, and this is baked, so it's healthier.

Friday Rant - Where'd the cheese go?

2008-10-24T10:31:00.003-04:00

Ok, so we have plenty of cheese in this country. We have cheddar out the wazoo, in all different levels of sharp (extra sharp=extra yummy), we have Swiss, we have parmesan and mozzarella (my farmer's market sells some seriously yummy mozzarella every friday). So yes, we have options. But seriously, where'd all the really tasty cheese go? I'm talking the melty, smells-like-old-socks kind of cheese that explodes on your tongue like a scrumptious dairy bomb. Or the subtle hard cheese that pairs with wine and is just impossible to stop eating. There's triple-creme brie, melted goat cheese on bread, hard mountain cheese. We have goat cheese here yes, but the goat cheese I've liked the most has other flavors in it (citrus lavendar, orange cardamom), so it's less about the cheese appreciation as the flavor and the pairing with bread.

So where'd all that cheese go?

The problem in the states is the pasteurization (heating the milk to kill of the bacteria before making the cheese). There are restrictions on who can make and sell cheese, and for good reason (listeria and e coli). But while pasteurization does definitely cut down on the negative side effects of cheese, people have been eating cheese for a hell of a lot longer than pasteurization has been around. The French eat unpasteurized cheese all the time, and do we ever hear about massive e coli outbreaks in France? Non, pas du tout. The e coli outbreaks we hear about are in the US involving meat (don't get me started on the meat packing plants) and spinach.

I'm not saying that we shouldn't pasteurize, because pasteurization was a great advance and is definitely useful (especially for pregnant women who don't want to chance exposing their baby to bacteria). I just want the option to eat non-pasteurized cheese without paying an arm and a leg. The raw-milk cheese on the market here has to sit for more than 60 days before it can be sold, because the bacteria is most likely to occue in the first 60 days (I'm presuming they test the cheese before they sell it). So basically, the two most popular soft cheeses in the world (brie and camembert) must be pasteurized because they can't sit around for 60 days. And have you tried pasteurized brie? It tastes vaguely like cheese, but basically amounts to a high calorie, high fat cheese-textured spread.

And American cheese? Seriously, I think that was a psychology experiment to figure out how much BS we'd believe if they told us it was cheese. I know lots of kids like it (I did when I was a kid), but man, that stuff isn't natural!

I've gotten some very fragrant, mouth watering cheeses at cheese shops near me. But for a small wheel (maybe 4-5 inches in diameter), it'll run me anywhere from $10-$20. So I usually stick with flavored goat cheese and mozzarella, and occasionally spring for something fancier if it's in my budget.

I'll run through some of the really tasty cheese isn't another, non-rant post. But what are all your thoughts on cheese and pasteurization? Have you had European cheese made from raw milk? What kinds of cheese do you prefer?

The Addictive Powers of Chewing Gum

2008-10-23T10:04:00.003-04:00

I admit that I have a strong (and not entirely unabashed) addiction to chewing gum. I go down to the convenience store in the lobby at work and buy five or six of those big packs of sugarless chewing gum at a time. And the gum does last for a while (several weeks to a month), so I'm not going overboard. But you should have seen their faces the first couple times I bought that much. They probably thought I was buying gum for my entire department. They're used to me now, though.

I normally get the itch to eat something around 1:30 or 2p, which is a bit after lunch, but before my 4p snack. So as to not add a bunch of extra calories to my daily intake, I resort to chewing gum.

A little while back I decided to google chewing gum, to see whether chewing 3-5 sticks of it a day (ok, at a time) was a good idea. And the results were mixed.

A lot of the info below was found on this page.

The Good Stuff

1. Many brands of chewing gum are given the American Dental Association's seal of approval. On a package of Extra, it says "The ADA Council on Scientific Affairs' acceptance of Extra is based on its finding that the physical action of chewing Extra sugar-free gum for 20 minutes after eating stimulates saliva flow, which helps to prevent cavities by reducing plaque acids and strengthening teeth." The Orbit package says the same thing.

2. Gum is a low-cal alternative to eating snacks (when it's the munchies, rather than real hunger - I found a page (which I can't find again now) on which someone says that they chew gum instead of eating lunch because lunch makes them sleepy. So gum instead of non-hunger based snacks = good. Gum instead of lunch = not so good).

3. Gum is tasty! My new favorite is the Sangria Fresca flavor from Orbit, but I also like their Mojito Mint, Sweet Mint, and Extra's Green Apple. I tend to start chewing one stick and then popping another soon after to refresh the flavor. Pretty soon I have 4-5 sticks in my mouth, but the flavor's still there because I'm still popping it. When I was little, I think I got something like 15 sticks in my mouth because I was trying to see how many I could possibly fit (the record is Richard Walker with 135 sticks chewed for 8 hours).

4. Chewing gum is supposed to increase alertness and concentration (perhaps it has something to do with being mindful, and focusing on chewing gum helps focus attention into other tasks as well?). Perhaps that why I bite my lip sometimes when I'm chewing gum - I'm focusing so much on other stuff that I forget that I'm chewing on gum and try to gnaw my lip instead...

5. Gum freshens your breath, temporarily at least.

6. Some psychologists believe that chewing gum can reduce tension and boredom, and that it can help release nervous attention and provide an outlet for frustration and irritation.

7. Chewing gum can help people quit smoking (whether it's nicotine gum or just basic gum).

The Bad Stuff

1. The artificial sweeteners in chewing gum can be very bad for you. Like sorbitol, which has been shown (in large quantities) to have a laxative effect and causes abdominal pain, diarrhea, extreme weight loss, to the point of hospitalization. Now, this only happens with 20g and higher of sorbitol (which is 15 sticks of Orbit gum). So it looks like I'm ok with the 2-4 sticks I have on most weekdays.

2. Some chewing gum uses xylitol, which has fewer health problems than sorbitol, and even has some positive effects (with osteoporosis, diabetes, dental care, and infection, for example). So this is good. However, xylitol is never the primary sweetener. Even in gums like Trident, which does use xylitol, the primary sweetener, and first on the list of ingredients, is sorbitol.

3. Chewing gum is really sticky. No duh, right? That's what makes it great for chewing, that we can chow down on the rubber for a while and it never breaks down (unless it's been sitting in the sun for a while, then it disintegrates. I don't recommend that, it's really REALLY nasty). But the problem comes when it makes contact with something non-mouth-related.

Hair, for instance. Hair and chewing gum don't mix. I've heard peanut butter is good for that.
For shoes? Stick your shoe in the freezer for several hours or overnight. This will make it brittle and easy to scrape off. This can also be used for clothing, carpets, mats, and even hair (though thank you, I don't want to stand there stuck to the freezer for a while until it manages to freeze...)
Once the bulk of the chewing gum has come off, take a beaten egg white and rub it onto whatever remains of the gum for a few minutes.
If the gum has spread out on a piece of clothing, then rub it with a mixture of salt and dishwashing liquid and another cloth.

4. Overuse of chewing muscles can make them very very tight and even, in some cases, lead to damage to the muscles and the disc in the tempero-mandibular joint.

That's all I've got for the moment. So I figure, all in all, chewing gum on occasion can be good for your teeth and help keep you concentrated, but chewing constantly, or even frequently, can lead to problems. Everything in moderation, that's the key!

Kickin' it with the Hoars

2008-10-22T09:59:00.006-04:00

As I've mentioned in passing in some other posts, I play on a kickball team. It's more social than exercise, but that's why most of us are there. But then we have games like last night, when we only had one extra person (and only four women, which is the minimum, so we got to play in the field every inning), and there's so much more running around. And I got up to kick three times (and scored once, woohoo!).

Most of the exercise comes from foul balls. You kick the ball foul, but you still have to run, just in case it turns out to be fair. And when you're on base and the kicker kicks it foul (on the ground), you still have to run just in case it's fair. And then there are the superspeed intervals, when you're on base, the ball is popped up, but the fielders drop it and you have to streak to the next base before they get the force play on you.

The other part of the exercise is the fact that it's just so damn cold that you have to jump around to get warm (ok, so maybe I was the only one dancing around and doing jacks, but hell, it was damn chilly, even through a long sleeved shirt, fleece, and team shirt!).

Our game last night was really fun. It was the best kind of kickball - everyone is really good natured and having a great time (even the team that got crushed, which thankfully wasn't us this week). Because smiles burn more calories than frowns right? I'd rather lose a game and have fun than win a game and not have fun because everyone got so super-duper intense. Thankfully, we had fun AND won last night (17-2), which is just the best of both worlds.

Then at the bar afterwards there are the bicep curls in carrying beer pitchers and flip cup (if you do enough of them, maybe it's even a full set!).

So here's the exercise spin on kickball, but really we're all just there to have a good time. And we've got a great crew, do us Hoars (team name= Horatio Alger, aka the Hoars. This becomes interesting when you're eating dinner with the folks and just out of the blue, total non-sequitur say "I'm a Hoar." Everyone just freezes, forks halfway to mouths, thinking "WHAT did she just say?!" What can I say, I like shocking people on occasion ;)

Fun New Foods: Quinoa

2008-10-21T09:52:00.006-04:00

Breaking out a new series of posts! I'm going to highlight a "new" food in each of these posts. In some cases, you might say "uh...Leth....that's not a new food, I've been eating that for ages!" Especially if you read health and food blogs frequently. But then the very next person to come along will say "well what the hell is that funky food you're talking about?!" So here goes.

Quinoa (keen-wa or ki-no-ah, I say the former)

This is my favorite carb at the moment (well, in addition to the multi-grain date bread I eat every day). It's in the whole grain family, kind of like barley but with less of that "I'm eating this because it's healthy and not because I like it" factor. Quinoa is small, circular grain that's cooked up like rice (only faster). It's especially tasty cooked in chicken broth, but is nearly as tasty cooked in water and with a little salt and pepper sprinkled on it. It goes well with meat and in soup (I used to
make soup with barley, which was kind of coarse and bland. Now I make soup with quinoa and it's much lighter and tastier). It's not as good with something bulky, such as eating with eggplant parm or ratatouille (those are better with pasta, in my opinion).

Ok, so it looks kinda gross up close. But see that little bumpy thing at top, and the fact that it's darker around the edges? You can't see all that detail when you're eating it, but the bump and the dark edges are visible and it looks like cute little swirlies on your plate. So if you get a kick out of cool shapes (yeah, I admit it, I'm kind of a nerd sometimes), then you'll get a kick out of quinoa.

What's good about quinoa from a health perspective? Well, it's a whole grain, which means that it's higher in dietary fiber, antioxidants, dietary minerals, vitamins and protein than refined carbs. Manufacturers often have to fortify refined grains to make up for the loss of vitamins and minerals. Also, whole grain carbs are digested (and enter the blood stream) more slowly. This helps avoid the cycle of eating a plate of (refined) carbs, then getting hungry soon after (caused by a spike and dip in blood sugar).

The Good Stuff
1. Quinoa is a whole grain, so it hasn't been as processed, so it's taken fewer resources to make. Thus, a smaller carbon footprint.
2. As a whole grain, it will fill you up for longer and not spike your blood sugar.
3. It's tasty.
4. Higher in vitamins and nutrients, and therefore better than refined grains in protecting against disease and promoting overall health.
5. You get to confuse people when you go into stores and ask for it and they say "whatwhat?"

The Bad Stuff
1. It's harder to find than your more run-of-the-mill grains. But you can always request it - I put in a request with my local farmstand, and just a few weeks ago noticed that they finally were stocking it. I bought a bag on principle (I didn't need any more), just to support the decision to stock it. Previously I had to go out of my way to another store to buy it.
2. People look at you funny when you ask for it, then they send you to look at the rice. Or they try to correct your pronunciation.

Quinoa is definitely my new superfood. It's my go-to grain, my side carb of choice. If you haven't tried it, then go for it!

Monday Recipe - Off the Cuff Cooking

2008-10-20T10:11:00.003-04:00

So I didn't have much time this weekend to cook. Normally, I'll take my Sunday to cook for leftovers for the week, or for the freezer. But this Sunday was pretty busy. So I figured I'd just eat out of the freezer for this week. Then at Whole Foods, the veggies were calling me. So I threw together a two-meal veggies and ravioli dish. I think that the recipe might need a little tweaking, and I might get ravioli with a different kind of cheese next time (the goat cheese was a little too...creamy, I guess). But it was pretty good for having thrown it together off the cuff.

Veggie-Topped Ravioli
12 walnut goat cheese ravioli (or whatever kind speaks to you)
1 head of broccoli, broken into bite-sized pieces
2 small onions, cut into rounds and then halved
12-15 baby portobello mushrooms, broken into pieces
1/2-1T butter (optional)
a short pour of white wine (just enough to keep it moist and add flavor)
garlic olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
red pepper flakes to taste

Sautee the onions in garlic oil until translucent and slightly browned. Add the mushrooms, wine, and butter until the mushrooms are cooked down. Add the broccoli and spices and cook until broccoli is bright green and hot (but not mushy).

In the meantime, bring water to boil and cook the ravioli (about 3-4 minutes). Don't overcook, as the ravioli may fall apart.

Serve ravioli topped with veggies.

Friday Rant - You are working for tips, aren't you?

2008-10-17T09:47:00.004-04:00

I understand that many people who serve tables (especially in such academic areas as Harvard, Porter, or Kendall Squares) are students working part-time. It's not a career choice, it's just a way to pay their way through the school year.

I know, I've been there. And honestly, I wasn't a very good waitress. I'd forget things (ooh, you mean you wanted silverware?), or I'd spill things (all over someone's head, on one memorable occasion). My heart wasn't in it, because while I enjoy being social and talking to people, it's just not quite as fun when you're trying to fit being personable into 8 tables ordering at different times and wanting refills and going through napkins like there's no tomorrow. And trying to keep the kitchen happy on top of that. Then when the table leaves, you hope and pray for that 15-20%, which you sometimes get, and sometimes you get 10% or less. And I found that I'd start judging people once they sat down - "this'll be a good tipping table" "this'll be a bad tipping table," based on whatever subconscious trends I thought I'd noticed with past tables. And then if I thought they'd not tip well, it'd make it that much harder to provide them good service, because why bother, right?

So as I said, I understand. But honestly, would it kill some servers to smile sometimes? Take last night, for example. I went to a pub-style restaurant in Harvard Sq. We had a sprawling group of maybe 15 people, milling around the (tiny) back area where there are a few tables, but mostly they just store their backup kegs and the entrance to the back store room. A social gathering that's basically a nightmare for a waitress, because you know that not everyone's eating, people aren't going to drink that much, and you're going to be running back and forth. On top of that, not everyone's going to be there at the end to decide on a concrete 20% tip, so it really depends on what people throw in. So I understand her lack of enthusiasm.

But I got there earlier than the group and was chatting with two other people who were there earlier and we ordered beers from her. And she seemed so put upon by the whole thing. Even the process of making change for us to pay for the beers seemed like a cross to bear. No smile, nope nope nope.

My reasoning is this. You may not expect much from a table (or big amoeba-like gathering) in the way of tips. You may be right. But if you frown the whole time, act like you don't want to be there, and in general look entirely put-upon, then you're confirming that expectation. You're creating the very result you feared. That said, honestly, I have no idea how much we left for a tip, so I don't know if her fears were realized (I threw in mine with some tip included and headed out). Put on a smile, hope for the best, do your best, and who knows, you might just get it!

(Oh, and if any of you are the "don't give tips just leave a card saying you disagree with the tip system" types, I'm going to shoot you down right here. Servers make about $2.50 an hour, and those little cards don't change anything, other than the server's ability to pay rent. If you want to change something, then petition your representative to get the minimum wage for servers changed)

Aging well? Don't let the mold get you down

2008-10-16T09:56:00.004-04:00

So unlike most blog posts having to do with food and aging, I'm not actually going to talk about the effect food has on your aging process. No no no. Rather, I'd like to take a moment to discuss how food ages. Like a fine wine, getting better as the days go by? Or like chicken left out of the fridge, going spectacularly rancid. On that last note, I encountered my first rancid chicken breast over the summer (the scary thing is that I cooked with some of it, and it tasted fine, but when I defrosted the rest it was entirely gone. Blech). Not a sensory experience I'm looking forward to repeating.

This topic was brought on by some pumpkin cookies I baked on Monday (the recipe is here). For the last two weeks (and the next three), we're having Cookie Mondays at work. So two or three people bring in cookies to share with the floor. I decided to try a new recipe and made these pumpkin cookies. And as I was baking them, I tried them as they came out of the oven and man they were realllly bland. Embarrassingly bland. Such that I seriously considered going to the store and buying cookies. But I just made the icing and it sweetened them up a little, and I brought them in. Tuesday they were ok, a little better than I'd remembered from Monday. But I had two tupperware worth of leftovers to do something with. So I brought one to kickball for my teammates. I made some excuses, saying I thought they were pretty bland (I hadn't iced this bunch). But then I tried one, and they were really yummy! No more excuses, wow those cookies age really well! They were still very moist, and the rum-soaked raisins (I used regular rum because I didn't have the special flavored rum the recipe calls for) added some definite extra flavor. Note to self: next time I make this recipe, wait 2-3 days before serving.

On another occasion was my experience with an avocado. Over the summer, I made my tomato caper ziti recipe, which calls for avocado bathed in lemon crumbled on top. What I normally do is bring in the tomato ziti in a tupperware, and bring in the whole avocado to work. Then I slice the avocado in half, put the other half in tupperware for the next day. But on this occasion, I didn't eat the avocado the next day. In fact, it wasn't until friday that I pulled it out of the fridge (it went in on monday). And looking through the opacity of the tupperware, it looked very strange. I opened it up it had a blanket of mold growing up out of it. Blanket isn't the right word, that sounds thin. This was more like a shag carpet, like grass left too long without mowing, like a nice spongy moss. It was dark dark greenish bluish gray and covered the avocado so completely that had I not known there was an avocado in there, I wouldn't have been able to identify it. I threw out the tupperware without even washing it (well, of course I had to gross some co-workers out with it first...).

Meat is interesting with age. Pork does not deal with with reheating, even the next day. It's not bad for you, not rancid, it just doesn't taste good. Chicken is usually ok for a couple days (and may even be better the next day once the flavors have a chance to sit and enhance), but then it starts to glisten and get a funky flavor before it goes bad. Beef reheats very well, and again there's the flavor enhancement issue with letting it sit overnight, but I had an experience with stuffed grape leaves (beef and lamb) which I had cooked on Saturday and when I finished it up on Friday it gave me a pretty blinding headache.

People deal with aging dairy in different ways. For me, if milk (or cream) even has a hint of a bad smell, it's down the drain, no two ways about it. I did this once, however, and then had to deal with the shock of being told that "you can still cook with chunky cream." Ok, so it wasn't said exactly like that. But the gist of it was that cream can be used for cream sauce even if it's curdled. No thanks, not for me. However, I'll happily lop off the mold from cheese (I'm talking not normally moldy cheese) and eat the rest. I figure it's like penicillin. A little mold on bread? No worries, I'll just pick it off and toast it up.

What are your experiences (good or bad) with aging food? Anything you were surprised weathered time well? Or alternatively, were surprised at just how fast (or funkily) it went bad?

Getting My Cardio On

2008-10-15T10:00:00.003-04:00

So in the last few weeks, I feel like I've barely been exercising. It started with being sick and getting subs for some of my classes. Then there was a networking event I went to and got a sub. Then one of my classes got canceled. And that was a good thing, despite the drop in pay and exercise, as I mentioned here. So my schedule looks like this:

Monday: 1 hour cardio (step), 1 hour boot camp (about 10 minutes of cardio intervals, total)
Tuesday: 1 hour meditation class
Wednesday: 1.5 hour meditation group, 5-inning kickball game (not much running involved, though there are bicep curls in our flip cup matches...)
Thursday: 1 hour boot camp (again, about 10 minutes cardio intervals)
Friday: every other week spinning, off week nothing (or, I should say, something social and not exercise related)
Saturday: 1.5 hour boot camp (about 20 minutes cardio intervals)
Sunday: rest

The thing with boot camp is this...most of the time I do a circuit training class, which has everyone in small groups doing different exercises. The advantages to this are that I can walk around and help them on their form very easily, and there's a bit of a competitive element so that people in groups are working harder with each other. Disadvantage is that I don't get to do any of the lifting, and I have to do very simple moves (no compound movements). So I went from 2-3 lifting classes per week to none. I'm starting to mix it up a little, sometimes doing a circuit class, sometimes having everyone individual (the whole class doing the same thing at the same time). And man am I sore today, yes sirree. But I do like the circuit format.

So given that in one week I do all circuit classes, I'm doing not quite 3 hours of cardio, best case, and not quite 2 hours, worst case. And what with the quantity I normally eat (and the fact that I don't feel like it's a big thing to eat a cookie if I want one, or three), it just doesn't seem sustainable. So something's gotta give.

I was debating whether to jump rope, meditate, or cook dinner when I got home last night, before heading out for a book discussion meetup. I have trouble motivating to work out on my own, but I was feeling the need to do cardio. And since money's tight, I felt like I should make dinner before going out. But I also didn't know how late I'd be out (since Tuesday is trivia night), and meditation is important too.

The meditation won out. I put on a meditation CD, got down on the floor, fended off my cat's grooming advances, and meditated for 30 minutes. Then I went to the book group and ordered dinner there. The cardio fell by the wayside. Unfortunately, there was no trivia due to the playoffs (though given the result, perhaps it would've been better to have had trivia!).

I've considered adding cardio to my lunchtime, but I don't really like to go back to work all sweaty (and taking a shower entails bringing make-up and such with me...). Now I'm just making excuses. And since I've had a cold, I haven't been back to yoga (I didn't think the person on the next mat would really appreciate me hacking up a lung in their direction).

Maybe on the days I am at the gym, I should jump rope for 15 minutes before I teach class. Because jump rope is an awesome workout, more bang for your buck than running. I could do jump rope and pushups, and I think that'll stand me in pretty good stead.

What are your go-to cardio/weight workouts in a restricted schedule? How often do you work out (if at all)?

Brewed Chocolate

2008-10-14T10:41:00.004-04:00

So recently I came across the Cabaret Brewed Chocolate website and was intrigued. There's nothing better than hot chocolate on a cold fall/winter day, coming in from the cold and wrapping your hands around a nice warm cuppa. But the problem with hot chocolate is that it usually comes packed with sugar, and if made with non-skim milk, there's fat in there too. Now, don't get me wrong, I love Swiss Miss, and can actually eat it dry straight out of the package. Even better with little mini marshmallows. But there must be healthier, low-sugar, low-fat options, right?

So I thought I'd try this brewed chocolate.

What's brewed chocolate, you ask?

The marketing from their website: "We brew whole raw cacao beans in water to extract the flavor and essence. Much the same as coffee is brewed from coffee beans -- except it takes a lot longer and it takes a lot a beans. A full pound of whole raw cacao for every jar. Then we sweeten this wonderful liquid with organic evaporated cane juice and reduce it into concentrated syrup. You stir this syrup into hot water - by the teaspoon - to instantly create a small cup of brewed chocolate."

So what are the good things about it?

1. Organic cane juice is a healthier option than refined sugar
2. Cocoa beans are very high in theobromine, which has much the same effect as caffeine without the jittery side effects. It supposedly promotes general mood enhancement and calm.
3. It's different and interesting, and it's always good to try new things!
4. Ancient Mexicans apparently valued chocolate more for how it made them feel than how it tasted - so the effect of the theobromine in the chocolate can raise your mood as well as making you time warp back to the New World.

And what are the bad things?

1. It's DAMN expensive! The 6oz jar (about 24 servings) costs $15, which comes to about $20 with shipping.
2. It's an interesting flavor. But it tastes more like brewed adzuki beans than chocolate. It's not bad, it's just not going to fulfill a hot chocolate craving. Maybe if I brewed it with hot milk instead of hot water, that would make a difference.
3. Ancient Mexicans apparently valued chocolate more for how it made them feel than how it tasted - so this also says that the company isn't trying hard to make it taste good, they're just focusing on the effects of it.
4. The website says that the flavor is "light, delicate and remarkably complex" - hm...well, it definitely is light, sure. Delicate I can get on board with. Remarkably complex I'm not so sure. Maybe I'm just used to bold flavors, but the flavor just seemed rather weak to me.

I don't regret trying this out, I always like trying new things. I wouldn't buy it again. But if you prefer mild, light flavors, and want the benefits of a hot beverage without the negatives of caffeine, then you might want to try it. I'm not sure if they sell in retail stores, you might have to just order it online.

Monday Recipe - Apple butter

2008-10-13T09:07:00.002-04:00

So this week I still had a large bag of apples left over from picking last weekend. Last weekend was the massive apple cook-off, and this week continued much the same. Apple cherry bread pudding (I didn't realize it was going to be like a pastry, I thought it would be pudding-like, but it was really yummy!), apple cherry crisp, apple chicken, and apple butter.

The apple butter recipe took me about six to eight hours. But I think that that's mostly because I made a double recipe (the quantities below are for a double recipe, which was about 10 1/2 smallish mason jars), and I used a deep pot on low heat (so I didn't have to constantly stir), which took longer to evaporate.

The problem I ran into is that I had no idea how many pounds of apples I had. So I rigged up a scale, MacGyver-style. I took an 8lb weight, tied it to a string, attached the string to one end of a stick. Then to the other side, I tied the bag with apples. And tried to balance it on a folded-up chair until it was about even. And it actually seems to have worked!!!

Apple butter

8lbs of apples
2C apple cider vinegar
4C water
Sugar (about 7-8 cups)
Salt
4t cinnamon
t cloves
t allspice
grated rind of one lemon

Cut the apples into quarters (without removing core or peel, as much of the flavor is in them) and add them to a large pot with the water and vinegar. Cover, bring to a boil, then simmer until apples are soft (about 20 minutes).

Ladle the apples into a food mill or chinese sieve. Force pulp into the bowl/pan below. This process took a while, and I was really surprised at how little detritus was left over from the peel and seeds, considering how many apples I used. Once the apples are reduced, return the apples to a pot. For every one cup of apple puree, add 1/2 cup of sugar. Stir to dissolve sugar. Add a dash of salt, cinnamon, allspice, cloves, and lemon rind. Taste and adjust seasonings as necessary.

All the above steps can be simplified if you just want to use applesauce instead.

Cook uncovered in a large pot on medium heat, stirring constantly to prevent the bottom from burning (or if, like me, you don't want to stand there for ages blasting out your shoulder stirring, put it on lower heat for a longer time). Cook until thick and smooth when spooned onto a plate (cooking cook take anywhere from 2-6 hours depending on the size of the pot and the heat).

I'm not going to go through the canning procedure here, but if you want to do that, then here are the steps. I did can them, and the seals were good on all but one of the jars (and it's important to sterilize and get a good seal to prevent botulism). I figure they'll make good Christmas presents.

It came out really yummy, spicy and sweet and great on toast.

Friday Rant - Caffeine, Beverages, and Sleep

2008-10-10T09:37:00.004-04:00

Why is it that all the really tasty non-alcoholic beverages seem to have caffeine? Coke (Cherry Coke is my fave and they don't make that sans caffeine), chai (you can occasionally find it without caffeine, but it's not usually as good), coffee, and tea (drinking looseleaf tea, it's amazing how few options there are for decaf, unless you want to decaf it yourself).

I drink lots of water, but that's because I'm prone to dehydration, not because I like the taste. And the caffeine lobby has even gotten its hooks into water now, with this product called Water Joe. I remember seeing a booth plugging caffeinated water when I was in college and thinking WTF? My reasoning was, if I'm going to deal with caffeine (given it gives me big withdrawal headaches), then I might's well drink something that tastes good. But I suppose the site is right that for people who are just looking for that caffeine IV, they don't necessarily need all the sugar and calories too.

I don't drink much juice (thankfully, given my tooth enamel situation), or soda (even of the decaf kind). So basically, my options are water, decaf tea and the occasional ginger ale. But I love me the caffeinated drinks, I do I do.

And why is this? Why is there such a dearth of tasty decaf options, especially for hot drinks? Decaffing doesn't change the taste of tea, so there's really no reason for that. Not a big fan of the taste of coffee. Soda does taste different when decaf, does anyone know why that is?

And here's the problem - we're a notoriously sleep-deprived culture. Kids in college consider it almost a badge of honor to pull an all-nighter. If you comment on how much a co-worker is yawning, they'll almost proudly say that they only got three hours of sleep because of such-and-such. And the rise of energy drinks only fuels people to stay awake longer to squeeze those 26 hours out of the day.

Our culture runs on caffeine. Honestly, it's not natural to see, when you get on an airplane at 11am, that half the plane drops right off to sleep. Our bodies evolved to respond to sunlight, to wake when it comes up, and go to sleep when it goes down. And while that's not practical (especially in the winter months when it gets dark at 4:30), it's also not practical health-wise to force our bodies to stay up into the wee hours, sleep for four hours, then set the alarm clock across the room on super-blast until we are able to crack open sleep-deprived lids.

I was once seriously asked what I could possibly be doing at home at 11p on a Saturday night, and received a very puzzled look when I replied that I would be sleeping. Not to say that I'm always so virtuous (trivia Tuesdays and kickball Wednesdays being a big exception), but if I don't have plans, then I'm likely to start meditating around 10-something and I'm in bed by 11.

Check out this wikipedia page on the effects of sleep deprivation on the body. I also saw a 60 minutes episode about sleep, and in one of the studies, they'd deprive a boy of sleep by subtly taking him out of REM over and over. After a few days, his thinking had slowed down and he had reached a near diabetic state. Another test subject showed obvious difficulty in having a normal, thoughful discussion, but thought that she would be able to drive just fine. Because we're all so used to sleep deprivation, we don't really realize the effect that it has on our bodies. We just gulp some caffeine, blast the AC, open the window, and hope we don't fall asleep.

I don't have anything against caffeine. I wish I could drink it more, since so many of the drinks I like seem to have it. But it seems to be the cure-all in our society. Have a headache? Drink a coke. Falling asleep at your desk? Have some coffee. Need to get through a night of clubbing? Have a rum and coke. I'm for moderation in all things, but this country has a caffeine addiction to fill the gap for our breakup with sleep. I'd rather drink the caffeinated beverage because I want it and like the taste of it, rather than just because it's going to wake me up, or because it's going to stave off the inevitable caffeine headache.

Debunking the Bunk - Coffee

2008-10-09T09:18:00.005-04:00

So the common wisdom about coffee seems to be that it's bad for you. Especially if you drink it in large quantities (I've heard tales of people drinking 8 pots a day, or of a girl working in a coffee shop who was admitted to the hospital for heart palpitations after drinking 10 espressos or so).

So not the best idea to drink 10 shots of espresso in a short time. Moderation is key.

But now, the common wisdom about coffee seems to be shifting (at least among scientists who've studied coffee's effect). Coffee's bad reputation seems to be more image than substance. In the past, coffee has been linked to anything from breast cancer to pancreatic cancer to heart disease. One hypothesis for the supposed bad effect of coffee (from this book) is that coffee often went hand in hand with cigarette smoking, and that it was the smoking that truly caused the health problems.

So now we're supposed to just on the coffee bandwagon? What's the deal?

A study cited in Science Daily says that women who drink 2-3 cups of caffeinated coffee a day decrease their chance of death from heart disease by 25%, and decrease their chance of death by cancer or heart disease by 18%. People drinking decaf coffee also had a lower rate of death than those not drinking coffee. Men had neither a higher nor lower risk associated with coffee.

Another study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine (mentioned in this Senior Health article) says that regular coffee drinking of up to 6 cups a day has no negative effect for either men or women.

The Bad Stuff

1. Caffeine can have negative effects ranging from an increase in anxiety, withdrawal headaches, irritability, shakiness, and insomnia.

2. Drinking espresso, French press, or other coffee that doesn't drip through a paper filter can increase your cholesterol by a few points.

3. Drinking a lot of coffee may increase your risk for developing osteoporosis or breaking a bone.

4. Not so yummy flavors, such as blueberry (I swear, one day at work when someone was brewing blueberry coffee, I had no idea what the smell was and I really honestly though that someone had forgotten to take out the trash).

5. If you already have heart disease? No dice. Coffee can increase your risk of heart attack or stroke.

The Good Stuff

1. Lower chance of developing kidney stones, gallstones, Parkinson's, colon cancer, or type 2 diabetes.

2. Less chance that you'll voluntarily depart this earthly coil - coffee (and other caffeinated beverages) often act like mild anti-depressants. Two studies showed that suicides are as much as 50% lower among coffee drinkers.

3. Lower rates of heart disease for women.

4. Yummy flavors such as hazelnut, mocha, pumpkin.

5. Coffee may be one of our highest sources of antioxidants, but whether that's because we drink a boatload of coffee, or that we don't eat enough other antioxidant food isn't specified. Coffee came out ahead of tea, chocolate or fruit on the antioxidant-o-meter. The next highest sources of antioxidants were black tea, bananas, dried beans (do people eat dried beans and do they have the same antioxidant level well cooked?), corn, red wine, lager beer (go flip cup!), apples, tomatoes, and potatoes.

However, the docs don't recommend adding coffee to your diet for health reasons. Because while coffee does have a lot of antioxidants, the other healthy food antioxidant sources (such as fruit and veggies) offer more in terms of total nutrition. And if you're like me and have to add a good deal of milk and sugar to coffee to make it palatable, well that pretty much negates the health benefit, right? Now I want some decaf anyway...

Hittin' the Woods

2008-10-08T09:47:00.004-04:00

So I know this is occurring to me very late in the year, as it's getting quite nippy out of doors now. But I'm thinking of getting back into hiking. What I hadn't realized is that the AMC (the Appalachian Mountain Club, not the theater...) organizes outings, or at least people who belong to the AMC do. So on their website you can plug in your state and it will tell you what local events are going on. It can be anything from hiking to walking, paddling to social hour. Maybe they even have snow-shoeing in the winter (which I've never tried, but the snow shoes are so cute, I might just take it up!). And since I have this Saturday morning off, for once (no class), I figure maybe I'll take advantage and get outside, see nature, get some exercise, and meet new people.

The cool stuff about hiking:

1. It's the easiest and least expensive outdoor activity (ok, well, maybe not counting gas, depending on how far afield you go). This is huge for me, because living in the city isn't cheap. And going out and being social generally involves spending money on dinner, or drinks, or a movie, or an event ticket, or membership in a club. So I'm all for finding ways to be social that aren't going to break the bank. I also signed up for ten meetup groups last night (ok, yes, overboard, but they all looked so interesting!)

2. It'll get your heart rate up. And the wonky thing about that is that I find the going the hardest at the base of the hill. Like when you're going up a very subtle incline on your way to the heavy hiking and you're getting out of breath and wondering why the hell it's so hard when you haven't even started the mountain yet. The rocks at the top are practically cake compared to that! The top is like step aerobics to me, I could run like a mountain goat. That bottom's a killer.

3. Sunlight, sunlight, sunlight. Sunlight is good for you (in moderation of course). Brief exposure can help you get enough vitamin D, but too much can increase your risk of skin cancer. So start off your hike, get warmed up, then stop for a stretch and slap on some sunscreen. The other factor in sunlight is that it elevates your mood, especially if you're like me and have a touch of Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), where too many gray days make the winter just seem dreary, and then that day of sunlight makes you feel like you want to jump out of your skin singing to the radio (that would be the seratonin, which is increased by exposure to natural light).

4. Help prevent osteoporosis. It's important, especially early (and middle) in life to do a fairly amount of impact activity. But running and kickboxing are often hard on the joints. Hiking has been shown to help increase bone density and slow calcium loss. And trails are gentler on the joints than pavement (I imagine this is because dirt is a softer and more spongy surface).

5. Boost your balance. If you've ever tried hiking up a rocky trail, you know that the rocks really have no concern for the people walking on them, so they stick out over which way, tip over without notice, skitter down the trail, or get very slippery from moisture in the air. Good hiking shoes are key. But hiking can also help build up balance (especially with a big backpack) as well as ankle strength. If you don't have very good ankle strength, try to minimize the scrambling over loose rock until you've built it up a little, just so you don't twist your ankle and get stuck on the mountain (bosus are a good way of building up ankle strength).

6. Enjoy nature. Especially this time of year (and especially in the Northeast), the leaves are turning yellow, orange and red, and the scenery is absolutely breathtaking. And being outside in the stillness (especially if you're used to the loud city) can be very meditative and calming. So every once in a while, take a gander up at the canopy, or off to the side of the trail, and there are amazing things to see, from funky shaped mushrooms to tree frogs.

So turn off your cell phone (but have it with you in case of emergency), bring a friend, and make a social event of it yourself!