Friday Rant - Expression lines

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)?

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

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?