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10月15日 Red Beans and RiceRight now, I'm eating a lunch composed of an Indian black-eyed pea masala, channa masala, and a side of cashew rice with coconut and ginger, and thinking about how, with some tweaks, these ingredients could be used to make Vietnamese food. Vietnamese dessert, that is. If you've ever watched a movie in which the story features the hilarity/calamity that ensues when Chinese(-American) and Western worlds collide, you know that non-Chinese are weirded out when they find red bean paste in their dessert. Not so for me. The first time I saw "Double Happiness" and there was a scene about red bean buns, my reaction was, "Ooh! That sounds good." There aren't many movies about Vietnamese people, so you might not know that our desserts take full advantage of the fruits of the legume world.
My parents don't usually offer dessert after dinner, but whenever my mom cooked and presented dessert, it was usually because she felt it was time for a vitamin boost. I'm not even talking about dairy or vitamin D. And before I learned anything about cooking and nutrition, I thought she was probably just kidding.
At my parents' house, whenever we ate dessert, we typically feasted on soupy and often syrupy desserts called che. (For some che p*rn, go here.) Che typically contains some combination of ingredients that never fail to surprise the uninitiated. Some of the more "unusual" ingredients that come to mind include:
This is only the beginning. Don't believe me? Wikipedia's entry on che lists a bunch of varieties I had completely forgotten about. I can't say I recall ever having eaten che with Chinese sausage, though. That one sounds bunk. What's funny about all this is that the first time I ate a chickpea while away at college, it finally occurred to me that chickpeas are not unique to Vietnamese food. A chickpea has American names! Americans and lots of other cultures eat chickpeas, albeit not usually in their desserts. Sometimes, my mom would buy hot ginger syrup with silken tofu for dessert. Or, we'd snack on glutinous rice with coconut flakes or boiled peanuts. And I can't forget to mention those deep-fried sesame-covered rice balls with mung bean paste in the middle. Although, I think that is one dessert we share with the Chinese. My dessert today (came with the curries) was a warm milk soup with tapioca and cashews, not unlike che. The world is such a small place sometimes. That thought warms my heart. 4月30日 Trying to Strike a Balance Between Good and EvilSince the beginning of the year, I have purchased food from the cafeteria at work ten times, maybe fewer, and that's because the cafeteria is a really dangerous place for someone trying to be healthy who is also very susceptible to temptation. It's impossible to get to the salad bar without first scoping out the burgers, fries, pizza, meatloaf, Mexican food, and now, the vegetarian South Indian food. As much as I'd like to eat any one of those things, I'd like to eat dessert even more. And if I'm going to eat a piece of pizza, I can't very well justify buying a brownie to go with it. There would be too many calories in that meal and zero nutrition.
I am still trying to eat the best foods possible whenever I can, but I've been giving in to the desserts a lot. I didn't used to be such a dessert person before I lost this weight. I used to be the kind of person who would throw a dinner party and completely space on offering any dessert because I didn't normally eat any. But these days, I swear, I think I have been inviting people over just to have an excuse for serving and eating dessert! I think some people would say this change is my body's way of saying that I need to eat more. But I'm actually eating plenty, going over my quotient most days. I think it's really more about rewarding myself for exercising such restraint the rest of the time! The last thing I want is to feel deprived. I have been using the ice cream maker almost weekly and thinking about how to recreate that almond cake I had at Txori the rest of the time. Gelato, sorbet, ice cream, sherbet, italian ice... You name it, I've churned it.
While I've definitely become more lax in the last couple weeks about about weighing my food, recording it, and trying to get optimal nutrition through food alone, I have been getting some form of exercise everyday and taking a multivitamin every morning. It's the best I can do right now because we've been socializing over food so much and I can't exactly weigh my food when I'm at a friend's house or at a restaurant. I'm convinced the vitamin helps with my cravings and tendency to overeat. Mostly. I guess the vitamins didn't do much yesterday or today.
I at least managed not to stray from the salad I consider both my safe harbor and anchor in this roiling sea of hunger. Both days, I piled heaping cupfuls of romaine lettuce onto my plate, then I topped the lettuce with a lemony-spicy French green lentil salad that included tiny chunks of Feta, segments of green onion, and slices of red bell peppers, and then I supplemented with more red bell peppers and cherry tomatoes. Then, before I could stop myself, I bought the hugest walnut-topped brownie even though I had packed a huge tangelo for "dessert". (Beth and I were talking about ice cream novelties right before I went to buy lunch and I couldn't get the chocolate out of my head.) Today, vividly recalling how overwhelmed I felt after I finished the second half of that brownie yesterday, I put together the same salad before picking up a paper dish of tater tots to go with. I ate those tots with a packet of ketchup and a packet of mayo. This is what happens when I set foot in the cafeteria!! First one kind of fat, then another. I don't feel horrible about it because it feels like there's some equilibrium in this. Still, I have noticed that on days like this, I'm more apt to skimp on dinner and that's not what I want to do either. Back to packed lunches and almonds tomorrow if there's any hope for me at all this week.
4月2日 MonkfishHow can monkfish liver taste good when monkfish tastes so bad?
I tried monkfish liver sushi for the first time not too long ago. I was expecting it to be like uni, soft like a wet scrambled egg and tasting like buttery snot on a rusty anchor at the bottom of the sea. I love uni, by the way, but these are the images that came to mind when I tried to think about how to describe it. Monkfish liver, though, is much more subtle. It's pretty firm and tastes, well, mildly like liver, but not much else. I liked it when I tried it and would definitely order it again. That said, when I ordered monkfish from a Korean restaurant the other night, it tasted like bone shards covered in burnt fish. The fish was similar to cod in texture, but so unappealingly bound to the bone by its slimy skin. There was a smokiness to the fish that I associate with Laphroaig, another weird flavor that I like just fine. I ate two pieces and then did the unthinkable. I deposited the takeout container in the trashcan.
Last night, I dreamt that monkfish look like Cylon Basestars, but with octopus-like skin and a pair of bulbous, close-set eyes on top of each tentacle. Now, doesn't that sound tasty?
3月19日 Bad Food Begets More Bad FoodNot too long ago, I started keeping a list of all the restaurants I've ever been to. As you might imagine, the list of restaurants in the Seattle area is the longest. Although the list is incomplete, I broke 200 for the Seattle area not too long ago. I've lived here a long time and we eat out a lot. I don't think this number is obscene. Actually, there are a lot more notable restaurants that you'd think would already be on the list, but aren't. What can I say? We are creatures of habit. But then, just this past weekend, I added five more. Now that's gut-bustingly obscene.
I just read this article about professional foodies struggling to reconcile their predilections for pork belly with the pounds they've packed on and are trying to take off. (As I wrote this last sentence, I ached longingly for the lovely hunks of pork belly, all pretty pink and creamy white, that I last saw at the grocery store in December and will not cook in the foreseeable future...) This article felt like it was written for me personally, and specifically about what I'm going through right now.
Restaurant reviewers and food writers are compelled to eat. They love food and end up having to eat a whole lot of it. It's so indulgent and utterly enviable. There was a time in my life when I lived to feel that indulgent about my food. I thought I was living the best life I could by treating myself to all the best things. At restaurants, we would order multiple appetizers, a main course for each of us, and sometimes even order another plate to share when something seemed particularly delectable. I delighted in watching servers' eyes get big as we ordered. We often explained that we'd eat the excess as leftovers, but we shoveled just as much, if not more, into our mouths at the restaurants as we put into the takeout containers. It's fun to play at being a restaurant critic. It's less fun to get fat while doing it.
When I started watching my calories, I decided I wasn't going to swear off eating out or indulging in cheese, sweets, or alcohol. That just wouldn't work for me. So, I mostly decided I would plan for encounters with these foods and never turn down an offer to a good restaurant if I could help it. These guys, being even more food-oriented, are doing much the same. One guy takes just one bite of something he absolutely has to eat. I like that. The same guy, when he cooks, aims to make very flavorful foods. I do that too. At home, rather than live on an austere diet of raw vegetables and fruit, I've been experimenting with different cuisines, tweaking recipes, and enjoying the results of my culinary trials. If I had any drive at all, I'd write a cookbook or open a restaurant and turn us into a nation of skinny foodies. Last night, I seared some sea scallops and served them on a bed of quinoa, carrot puree, brussels sprouts with caramelized shallots, and a side of Indonesian corn fritters. The most caloric thing were the corn fritters, and even then, it was absolutely worth the 122 calories for the two. The meal could have been slightly more nutritious, but very little planning went into it, so I'm still pleased with how it turned out (aside from the scallops being horribly overdone due to my inattentiveness).
When I read that article, I realized I must have a fantastic metabolism. Those guys eat three squares of the meals I used to eat. And they ended up being really, really big guys. What I ate this weekend, while it felt gluttonous, was actually reasonable portion-wise. Still, I cringed as I added things up in the CRON-o-meter. By my very rough estimate, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday averaged out as 3000-calorie days. And I really did my best to exercise portion control! I even took home half of Saturday's lunch. And we had Vietnamese food on Saturday night! I can't even imagine how I didn't completely blow up back in the days when I was probably eating 3000 calories on an average day and something more like 5000 calories on restaurant nights.
I think I could have handled myself a little better this past weekend (and during the beginning of this work week) if we hadn't just come back from five days of poor nutritional choices in Mexico (beer, more beer, rum, tequila, tortilla chips). I really do believe now that eating food that's full of sugar, salt, fat, and preservatives makes you crave more of it. Before we went to Mexico, I no longer felt at all deprived by small portions and didn't feel compelled to eat junk food just because I'd been confronted with it. Maybe all the vitamins and minerals I was stuffing into my body while being stricter with myself about the CRON that made me think more clearly, but I tend to think it's the physical imprint of sugar, salt, fat, and preservatives in your body and your memory of those flavors in your brain that makes you crave them. After you've detoxed, I think/hope your brain forgets and you can just as easily moan happily over a scoop of yogurt and fresh blueberries as you can over chocolate cake. Sort of.
On Monday, I had myself half of a maple bar that I found in the kitchen at work. I had been thinking about doughnuts before I walked into the kitchen and it was like the universe's way of saying, "I know what you've been thinking. Go ahead. The week's already shot anyway."
Even as I transition back into healthy eating post-vacation, I keep finding myself putting coins into the vending machine for peanut M&Ms or walking all the way over to the cafeteria for a brownie. I just feel so hollowed out inside that my salads and lentil and kale soups can't fill the void. I haven't lost hope, though. However slowly, I do think I'm inching back to the mindset I had before. Proof? This morning, I had a bite of a pastry I picked up at Bella Dolce yesterday, hoping it would be stale and worthy of disposal into the garbage. It was chocolate ganache and cocoa powder heaven. A truffle in the guise of a brownie. What I thought were signs of staleness was just a sugary crustiness. After that first bite, I considered eating the whole thing and adjusting the rest of the day's calories accordingly. But then, after the second bite, I got out a knife and cut a clean edge so I could put the rest away for another day.
Mark had wisely suggested waiting a week after the Mexico trip to get back on the scale, but I think I'll make it two. 3月4日 Feed Me!Sometimes, like right this very minute, I hear this voice in my head that goes something like, "Just feed me already!!!" It's kind of intense, and while the green tea takes my mind off it, I am really glad I no longer keep a bowl of chocolate in my office. I haven't heard this voice much at all lately. It used to haunt me morning, noon, and night. Ever since my birthday earlier this year, I made a decision to cut back on my weekly caloric intake by a bunch and my stomach has shrunk accordingly. These days, when I eat, I probably eat half the volume I would have before. I used to have a really big, almost insatiable appetite. I'm 5 feet and one-half inch tall, but fully capable of eating more than my husband who's 6'3".
The past few days I've had the worst cravings and I want to snack all the time. I'm not used to feeling this way again. I've had chocolate on the brain ever since I had chocolate cake on Roper's birthday. I even caved yesterday and bought a brownie from the cafeteria mid-afternoon. I felt utterly nauseated after I finished eating it so it was easy to adjust my calories for the rest of the day. I somehow still came in about 200 calories under my daily goal. Today, I'm trying to be really good because we're going out to eat and although it's going to be seafood from my favorite seafood restaurant, Ray's, I already know I'm going to have three courses and probably a cocktail or two. It's Dine Around Seattle month, after all.
Although I've been watching my calories pretty much since the beginning of January and weighing my food almost as long, I only starting faithfully recording my food a week and a half ago. It's become an obsession. I'm using CRON-o-meter software. The software has its shortcomings, but I like it a lot. It even solved my problem of how to account for a portion of a recipe. And since I'm on the subject of the CRON-o-meter software, I should probably go ahead and make this a blog about CRON. I think, at this point, it's fair to say that I'm flirting with CRON (calorie restriction with optimal nutrition). I'm not exactly well-known for sticking with a routine, though, so I'd like to keep this up for at least a few more months before I consider myself a practitioner. (Case in point: my love affair with the gym is always super intense, but never lasts longer than three months at a time. I want to compare it to having a 17-year-old boyfriend who's really, really cute but also dumb, but the last time I was in that situation, I was 15 so what do I know?)
Anyway... The first time I ever heard of CRON, it was via a couple articles that, quite frankly, creeped me out. It sounded like it was easy to take things too far. I would love to be a size 2, but I don't want to look like Nicole Richie running on the beach in a bikini! CRON also seemed like a lot of work. But, lately, measuring food has actually become completely routine. And although I've been reading various blogs maintained by serious CRONies for inspiration and motivation since Beth and I embarked on a weight loss plan late last summer, I never really considered the possible nutritional impact of eating fewer calories until recently. And if you're just cutting calories without considering your nutrition, you're only getting a taste of anorexia, not CRON. With my obsessive and compulsive tendencies, I figured I'd better get interested in nutrition, and quick. For the record, I want to eat about 30% fewer calories than are recommended for someone my height, weight, and activity level. I work out about three times a week for a minimum of one hour each time. Most calculators have worked this out to be about 1300 calories a day. Some days I eat more, some days less. The goal for people who practice CRON is to be at 10-25% below the weight towards which they naturally drift or to be the weight they were in their late teens. Since the weight towards which I've naturally drifted in the last ten years has been rather high for someone my height, I'm going to aim for my weight at 18 or so. (Yes, I have been lying to everyone who's asked me my weight goal. Sorry. I just didn't want to alarm anyone who didn't know about the ON part of this CRON thing.) And although I see this as a very effective means to lose weight, I am definitely also extremely interested in having an unstoppable immune system and in sticking around long enough to enjoy my 401(k).
Until now, I've never worried at all about my nutrition. My health and what I eat have always seemed unrelated, as crazy as that sounds. I don't worry about eating processed foods or even outright junk because my blood pressure and bloodwork have always been good. (You'd think all that fatty red meat would have an impact, but I've got a phenomenally good ratio of very low LDL cholesterol and very high HDL cholesterol.) Alongside the junk, I would eat vegetables and fruit whenever I thought about it, but there have been many days in my life when I ate only meat, starches, and sugars. That said, when Peter's biggest new year resolution was to become a pescetarian, I seized the opportunity to shove nutrition down his throat. I couldn't very well do that without also shoving it down mine.
The last time I tried cutting calories, my goal was simply to consume 1200 calories or fewer on an average day. I didn't much care if those calories came in the form of french fries and chocolate bars or lentils and lettuces. And let me tell you, there were a lot more chocolate bars than there were salads. But, in helping my husband to subsist on more than just peanut butter, baby carrots, and bananas, I found myself eating more fruit and vegetables too. And for anyone who hasn't lived with him, I assert that this is absolutely what he would have done if I hadn't intervened. Although I'm not great about eating healthfully, I have routinely made meals that are too vegetable-based or suspiciously healthy for Peter to eat. On those nights when I've cooked something particularly offensive to his sensibilities (namely, anything based on eggplant, chard, tofu, or mushrooms) he's had no problem fending for himself by foraging in the pantry and freezer for such nutritionally sound choices as frozen burritos and ice cream. But since his conversion to semi-vegetarianism, he's made major strides towards becoming a vegetable and fruit-lover. First, he started pushing to make sure we got our fiber. Then, he even got me to start taking multi-vitamins.
Eating healthy means eating at home a lot. We've completely reversed our trend of eating out five to six nights a week and now eat out once a week at most. Since we now eat at home most of the time, I made it a personal challenge to learn to make vegetables the basis of each meal. I'm a decent cook, but I'm much more adept at improvising with a piece of meat than I am with a drawer full of vegetables. And I figured I'd better learn how to ease Peter into the whole vegetarian routine without provoking an immediate about-face. Naturally, I turned to Indian cooking. Indian food is primarily vegetarian, tastes great, and already in my repertoire. Because I love food, spices, and cooking, I have no interest in eating mostly raw vegetables and fruit like many of the people who practice CRON. I also like entertaining and I couldn't imagine trying to satisfy non-CRONies with salad entrees and fruit for dessert. The recipes that are heavy on cream or coconut milk require much smaller portions. Because I insist on still eating non-diet foods like mayonnaise, cheese, and even ice cream, I've had to cut waaaay back on portions in order to stay within my calorie limits. Because there's no sense in my cooking meat on nights that it's just the two of us eating and because I've been eating really small portions of most things, I actually started to worry about getting enough protein and other nutrients. I guess it was with this in mind that I decided to give CRON a try. I was already halfway there anyway.
When you're forced to look at the actual nutritional value of the food you eat and not just calories, it's a pretty good motivator to eat more of the right foods. I don't like looking at the day's intake and seeing that I only got 50% of my vitamins even though I hit 1300 calories. Hence succumbing to the multi-vitamin, I guess. Although I'm taking the vitamins now, I resolve to continue studying the food lists and calorie charts so I can develop menus that satisfy the foodie in me while also providing a good nutritional profile. I think I like what a challenge that will be. I know it's achievable because people do it, but the people who do it have such plain looking diets and they tend to eat the exact same thing every day. That's not my thing at all. I'm also worried about still being able to cook meals that make sense. For example, last night, I roasted beets, but then set them aside when I realized they wouldn't make sense with my heavily spiced Indian-style cauliflower entree. So I forwent the vitamins and minerals in the beets in favor of the less nutritious, but more flavorful cauliflower, potates, tomatoes, and peppers. Probably not such a good idea to practice this in the long run. I have this thing about dishes going together and I think that's going to be hard to do when I've got to get all kinds of vegetables into one meal in order for it to be complete nutritionally.
Aside from the weight loss, the most noticeable thing I've taken away from this experiment so far is the lack of cravings and the need to eat ginormous quantities of food. I can actually have just 15 g of tortilla chips and not the entire bag. But today is different and it totally sucks. In thinking about it, I suspect it's because I had a half cup of cereal for breakfast instead of my usual 10g breakfast of almonds. So much for trying to get more vitamins out of breakfast. The almonds are way more filling. Something about cereal and oatmeal always kickstarts my appetite so that I'm ravenous an hour after eating. I may have also psyched myself out this morning when I pre-entered my lunch into the CRON-o-meter and saw that I'd already be at 498 calories before ever setting foot inside the restaurant. Normally, this would be a perfectly acceptable mid-day count, but tonight I'll be consuming what will surely be 1500 calories. Plus 500. Apparently, you always add 500 to whatever you estimate a restaurant meal to be! Days like this, I remind myself that I went to kung fu yesterday, will be going to kung fu tomorrow, and that I will be mindful about the beer and chips when we're in Mexico this weekend. :S 1月25日 Damn.Even in a field of only 900 competitors, I didn't make the cut. Oh, well. At least a Vietnamesus won! I am definitely looking forward to trying out the recipes from the top 15, though, whenever they get around to posting them. Ice Cream, You ScreamThe people in my life know me very, very well. For Christmas and my birthday, I received the following kitchen items as gifts: a Belgian waffle maker, a deep fat fryer, an ice cream maker, a digital kitchen scale, two cast iron mini-cocottes, a spice grinder, and a Microplane chocolate shaver. (I also got a lot of amazing jewelry and clothes. Like I said, the people in my life know me very well.) Thanks to the digital kitchen scale, Peter and I are somehow managing to still lose weight! I highly recommend the kitchen scale to anyone trying to keep their calories in check. We use that thing multiple times a day.
Yesterday morning, however, was the first time I made ice cream with my new ice cream maker. Can I just say how nice it is to be able to make ice cream before you head off to work?? Granted, you don't burn calories like you do with those old-timey, hand-crank ice cream makers, but you're still burning some calories spooning the stuff from the bowl to your mouth... Anyway, I used a no-cook recipe out of my Gourmet cookbook and it turned out okay. It was a little ice-milky, but I think that's because it was a recipe that didn't require eggs. Either that, or I should have let it defrost a little before serving it... I'm already scouring the Web for ice cream recipes to try next. I'm most curious about fennel ice cream and lemon verbena ice cream, although I'm not sure who's going to try those with me (besides Beth, who's already said she's game). Ice cream seems to be a vessel for just about any flavor you can dream up, which will probably prove it to be both a blessing and a curse.
**Update: I should also mention I got a Meyer lemon tree for Christmas! That's yet another ice cream flavor I hope to make soon. The tree's already producing fruit! 1月23日 A Warning to Sushi AddictsApparently, there's such a thing as too much sushi. Recent studies show that there is so much mercury in tuna sushi, particularly bluefin tuna, that a regular diet of six pieces a week would exceed the levels considered "acceptable" by the EPA. Apparently, no government agency regularly tests seafood for mercury. I find that kind of shocking. I guess what's happened is that these studies confirm and quantify what most people already knew from hearsay. Why did those busybodies have to go and study sushi? Couldn't they have investigated the detrimental effects of, oh, I don't know, lima beans? 1月11日 Chocolat(e)yBack in November, I submitted three recipes to a contest seeking original recipes that use Scharffen Berger chocolate and at least one ingredient from a list of "adventure" ingredients. I was inspired to enter the contest after picking up a card at the Scharffen Berger chocolate factory in Berkeley and finding that the list of "adventure" ingredients included many items in my kitchen pantry. In fact, the only items from the adventure ingredient list that I did not have on hand at the time I developed the recipes were cacao nibs, grapefruit, and mastiha. Grapefruit always goes bad sitting on the counter at our house.
My recipes were developed with the judging criteria top of mind. In the first round, a whopping 35% of the points would be awarded based on creativity. Since this was a chocolate recipe contest, it seemed like a no-brainer to go with savory recipes. Besides, I'm not much of a baker. Another 30% is awarded based on ease of preparation. I came up with recipes for a pomegranate-pecan spread, a curried beef and peas dish, and a simple mole-type dish using quince paste. All were one-pan or one-appliance recipes requiring minimal prep work.
Unfortunately, now that I've submitted those recipes, I can't publish them here. I was pretty happy with how each dish turned out, but I have to admit I've never tasted any dishes made following the recipes to a tee! In developing the recipes, I only created mini-portions of each. (I didn't want to throw away too much in the event that one of my experiments failed (many did). I also didn't want to be stuck with five pounds of curried beef no matter how good.) I paid attention to portions and proportions and then resized everything appropriately when it came time to type up the final recipe. Writing a recipe, by the way, is way harder than I thought it would be. I'd never written a recipe before this. First, you have to list ingredients in the order that you use them. You have to specify what kind of vessel in which to cook things or what kind of appliances are required. You have to consider whether accompaniments (like rice for the beef dish) are considered part of the recipe (I decided that, no, they really are not). It took me hours to get everything exactly right. I just barely made the midnight deadline!
Anyway, the reason I'm writing about this now is because the entries are being judged "on or about January 11, 2008." That's today! I won't know until "on or about January 20, 2008" how I fared, but I'm optimistic. While I was bound by the availability of ingredients when preparing the spread and the beef for Fumi's theobroma-themed birthday party (I wung it instead), I got very positive reactions. Keep your fingers crossed for me!
12月18日 Crab Cakes for Your HealthLast night, I made crab cakes using a recipe from my Ray's Boathouse cookbook. I was disappointed at not being able to locate the autographed I Love Crab Cakes! cookbook my mother-in-law gave me a previous Christmas, but the Ray's recipe was stellar. I haven't yet been disappointed by a recipe I've tried from the Ray's Boathouse cookbook, so if you're looking for a good seafood cookbook, I highly recommend it. I think I know where the missing book might be, so I hope to use it sometime soon.
Anyhow, what I found is that crab cakes are part of a balanced diet. The recipe I used included the five major food groups: meat (crab, of course, and egg), vegetables (shallots, cilantro, and bell peppers), fruit (apples and lemon), dairy (heavy cream), and bread (in the form of panko bread crumbs). Eat crab cakes the next time you're recovering from any kind of illness and you'll be cured! I was sick over the weekend, but after two meals of crab cakes, I feel much better.
I managed to make nine pretty hefty crab cakes (two and half inches or so across and one inch thick) using what looked like a small crab that Peter received from a friend at work. We ate the crab cakes with a soup I made using roasted delicata and acorn squash and a slightly modified version of Mark Bittman's recipe for winter squash soup from How to Cook Everything. Aside from removing the crab meat from its shell, the meal came together pretty quickly. The soup was really easy to make. I roasted the squash while working on the crab and got started cooking the soup while the crab cakes "set" in the fridge. If only I was faster at removing meat from crabs, we'd eat like this all the time. (So I say. Truth is, we seem to eat junk food or eat out six days out of seven. Sometimes seven days out of seven. When I cook, I prefer to make an all-out meal. Making dinner's rarely a simple affair, so it's not something I dive into during the week unless Peter has expressly given consent to dinner at 9pm or I've got a particularly good one-dish recipe in mind.) 10月23日 We Are What We EatThis article about organic foods in The New York Times kind of freaked me out. I used to dismiss people's claims that eating organic is better for you, but these days, most of the fruit and vegetables we eat at home are organic. Increasingly, even the packaged food we buy is organic. However, I still supplement my produce box with non-organic items from the grocery store, so I figured I'd read this article even though I feel I've read plenty about organic produce versus non-organic.
After digesting the freakiest line in the article--"A 2006 U.S.D.A. test found 81 percent of potatoes tested still contained pesticides after being washed and peeled, and the potato has one of the the highest pesticide contents of 43 fruits and vegetables tested"--I followed this link to look at the test results of foods most and least contaminated by pesticides. I suggest you take a look. It wasn't what I expected.
I was sad to see peaches at the top and nectarines not far behind because I eat so many of those. Pioneer Organics doesn't always deliver on taste for peaches, nectarines, plums, and pluots, so I tend to pick them up from the farmer's market and Asian grocery stores. Something tells me not all farmers at the farmer's market adhere to organic principles... And the produce at Asian grocery stores is always so much cheaper that I can't even imagine them going out of their way to stock organic anything.
Surprisingly, tomatoes are at 29 on the list (which is ranked from most contaminated to least). This is surprising to me because I actually know someone who was in and out of the hospital for months after she mysteriously collapsed. After lots of tests and blood transfusions and who knows what else, the hospital doctors determined she had poisoned herself by squeezing her own fresh tomato juice from pounds and pounds of tomatoes she got from her local grocery store. One of the first things her little girl learned to say when she started talking was, "Mommy's at the hospital." How sad is that?? For some perspective, potatoes are at 12. My guess is that tomato plants produce some of their own pesticides because I've never had a problem with any of mine. Something about that thin skin, those gem-like colors, and that plump, juicy flesh makes me think tomatoes would be like manna from heaven for bugs, but they apparently don't eat them in the same quantities I do.
Now that I've read this article, I'll probably print out the chart to consult at the grocery store and will probably put more emphasis on different items for my produce box orders, too. It just seems silly not to when I have the information at my disposal. 9月4日 Meals on Wheels? Anyone?The kitchen is literally overflowing with food that I bought and made for Labor Day. Although Peter was out of town, I was really looking forward to using the grill on our new deck. So, I invited a bunch of people over for Labor Day, but a significant number of them either didn't RSVP, RSVP'd late (in the negative), or were ambiguous about their plans. I guess I was similarly ambiguous about my plans, so I can't really blame anyone for doing the same. But, seriously, the amount of food I will eventually have to toss is obscene. I always figure it's better to have too much than not enough, but this is ridiculous.
I've been craving ribs for awhile now, and yesterday, I finally satisfied my craving by making 4 pounds of babyback ribs. I vacuum-sealed the other 3.5 lbs and put it away in our chest freezer for some other time. The recipe I used was great, but I made some small changes. I used plain chili powder instead of "Mexican hot", so it lacked bite. I'd recommend using hot chili powder or supplementing the chili powder with something spicy. Next time, if I do the same, I may try adding some Jamaican hot sauce. Also, I doused the ribs with a concentrate of hard cider instead of dark beer. If anything, that added to the sweetness, which I liked just fine. I bet a chocolate stout would have been good too. Then, instead of one tablespoon of espresso instant powder, I used a bit less than one teaspoon of finely ground espresso. When I first tasted the sauce, the espresso was overwhelmingly bitter, but it mellowed after sitting overnight (and maybe also as a result of the heat on the grill).
I applied the rub to the ribs before going to bed on Sunday and let them marinate overnight. I'm sure it would have been fine to let them sit for just an hour or two, but I was happy with how the flavor penetrated right down to the bone. I also cooked the ribs in the oven for just an hour and twenty minutes, which seemed to be plenty of time to get it fork-tender. Some people don't like fork-tender meat because they say that, well, meat shouldn't be that tender; after all, it's still meat. To those people I say, "Would you rather risk losing your grip on that rib and having it fly to the ground or, worse, across the table to your dining companion's clean shirt or would you rather have every last juicy morsel find its way into your mouth?" I'm sure the answer's the same in most cases.
And so, I still have about two pounds of cooked ribs left.
Not to mention the ten or so marinated chicken legs. They haven't been cooked, so I may resort to freezing them now that they've been marinated, but I'd much rather cook them and get them out of the house! I feel kind of ill thinking about trying to eat them all. They were marinated in orange juice, soy sauce, ginger, garlic, and just a touch of red pepper flakes, in case anyone's interested. Tina, maybe I could put them into a freezer pack and overnight them to you? The skin gets wonderfully sticky and just a bit crispy after time on the grill.
And then there're the grilled vegetables (peppers, onions, mushrooms), potato salad (with red potatoes, cornichons, and radishes), corn-on-the-cob, and baked beans. Also, I made two big plum tarts and we didn't quite finish one... Thank god I never got around to making the cole slaw or the basil cornbread I was planning about making. Although, I could really use some cornbread to go with those ribs, especially if I'm going to be stuck eating the remaining two pounds all by myself, so I may pick up a box of Jiffy on the way home and be done with it... But, seriously, if you want a care package, I will drop food off at your house. No joke. Provided you live in Seattle or thereabouts. 5月1日 Loca for El Pollo LocoI've been craving El Pollo Loco for a couple days. Peter said he thought he'd seen one in Lynnwood. Lynnwood's where we go for Red Lobster, so it would only make sense that they're also host to an El Pollo Loco. With yesterday's dinner plans cancelled at the last minute, I searched the Yellow Pages with great anticipation...and found that the closest El Pollo Loco is in Reno. We only ever eat Jimboy's tacos in Reno. I had no idea they had an El Pollo Loco.
Before I ever ate El Pollo Loco, I had only eaten chicken in battered and deep-fried form from such establishments as KFC (back when it was known only as Kentucky Fried Chicken) or Church's along with the occasional dish of chicken sauteed with lemongrass or ginger at home. We were mostly a beef, prawns, and pork-eating family. It was a revelation to eat flame-grilled chicken with skin simultaneously juicy and crisp. I had thought you could only achieve that delectable combination with thit heo quay (barbequed pork) or, now that I think of it, thit vit quay (barbequed duck). I didn't know a food so pedestrian could be rendered as heavenly. Part of their marketing genius, I think, was that El Pollo Loco was being touted as a healthy fast food option.
El Pollo Loco was certainly more expensive than our usual takeout, but it was HEALTHY! Also, I think my parents were just as in love with it as I was. I remember having El Pollo Loco a lot for awhile there. It was an exciting new dish with familiar trappings. Swap out the grilled chicken with skin on, flour tortilla, Spanish rice, refried beans, and salsa for boiled pork and shrimp, rice paper, rice vermicelli, lettuce, pickled carrots, and nuoc mam (fish sauce) and you've got yourself goi cuon (spring rolls). Okay, when I put it that way, the goi cuon actually sound much better, but you've got to understand that El Pollo Loco was NEW and DIFFERENT! The caramel flavors from the charred skin on the outside and the hot, melty fat of the underside... I still think of it as sinfully satisfying, which would put it in stark contrast to the more virtuous goi cuon, all fresh ingredients and offering crispiness only in the veggies. Fibrous cells flush with water versus flesh seared over a hot flame. I know which one gets me fired up.
That said, I haven't had El Pollo Loco in years, though I do get the rotisserie chicken from the cafeteria at work sometimes and that got me thinking. So, I stopped by the Safeway on my way home from work and loaded up my basket with tortillas and pico de gallo salsa while I waited for the next batch of rotisserie chickens to come out of the oven. I was ravenous and waiting twenty minutes was not easy. When I got home, the most I could do was shred a bit of cabbage to fake the pico de gallo I would have made given a little more time. Then, we sat down and feasted. It wasn't quite the same as El Pollo Loco, of course, but whenever I got a bite of skin and dark meat, there was a hint of all that could have been. El Pollo Loco, if you're reading this, please consider putting an outpost here in Seattle!
... Oh, holy crap. I just went to El Pollo Loco's company website to find out who owns them, thinking I might as well ask for an Olive Garden at the potential new Target shopping center in the International District while I'm at it and instead I found out, "As part of El Pollo Loco's plan to expand nationwide, development agreements have additionally been signed for new restaurants in California, Arizona, Texas, Oregon, Washington, Utah, Virginia, Georgia, Missouri, Illinois, and New England." My prayers have been answered!! If they bring El Pollo Loco to Seattle (or Lynnwood), I don't even care if I have a place to take my Uncle Giuseppe when he comes to visit from the old country. 12月12日 On Charcuterie, Crepes, and Other CaloriesIf it doesn't come with pate, we don't want it. That was this weekend's jokey group motto, but it may as well be my personal motto for all the time.
You see, these days, you can't go into a Seattle restaurant without seeing a charcuterie plate on the menu. And, without fail, this charcuterie plate is "a selection of cured meats from Salumi". I've got nothing against Armandino Batali. He's obviously a very good businessman, but I do wish Seattle restaurateurs would show some ingenuity.
Over the weekend, we nibbled from charcuterie plates at two different San Francisco restaurants. Both came with at least one kind of pate and one even came with foie gras mousse. Both were decorated with healthy chunks of cured meats. One was supplemented with olives and cornichons. The other was a half-and-half (moitie-moitie) plate and therefore also came with a variety of creamy cheeses and fresh fruit. In comparison, Seattle charcuterie plates appear particularly anemic, adorned plainly with paper-thin slices of Salumi meats and nothing else. Maybe it's because I grew up with a dad who regularly treated me and my sisters to sizable slices of Gallo's dry salami as pre-dinner snacks, but I like salami that I can sink my teeth into. I like to think that someone carved off a hunk of that meat with a penknife. The image is so much more romantic than that of someone running the meat through an electrified carving machine. I like my meat...well, meaty. Surely, I'm not the only one. They seem to understand this primal need down there in San Francisco.
We had such good food this weekend that I really wish we had had money back when we lived in the Bay Area. The San Francisco food scene isn't perfect but I would still love to explore it every weekend if I could. Examples of how it's not perfect? Good luck getting a reservation without plenty of advance notice. I called three places. The first was "fully committed" for the entire weekend and the second two couldn't seat us before 10 or 11pm. (In the interest of full disclosure, the first place was Gary Danko. They've had lots of national and international press lately, so I was fully expecting to be shut out but was hoping to luck out instead...) Be prepared to wait approximately one hour (or two) at any place that doesn't take reservations, regardless of what time of day you go. Also, be prepared to spend a sizable portion of the bill on drinks. Drinks are surprisingly expensive considering the liquor's cheap at the liquor store. Even with all these negatives, I still have to admit that I love the sheer variety and number of restaurants. It also helps that the food at many of them is the kind of thing you write home about (or write about on your blog).
Saturday morning, we had brunch at Canteen, which really is tiny and really is delicious. There were Eggs Benedict and duck on the menu. I would have had the duck, but I was really in the mood for breakfast food. I did something uncharacteristic and ordered an omelette. I normally don't like omelettes, but I liked the sound of tuna and capers with my eggs. The eggs were flavorful and tasted like they'd been cooked in butter. The tuna was pan-grilled and ended up kind of plain for my taste. It would have helped if there had been more capers, but overall the omelette was pretty good. In retrospect, I probably should have gone with the duck or the Eggs Benedict. I had a taste of Beth's Eggs Benedict and was duly impressed. Mark's corned beef hash had more meat than potato. It was apparently good, but it was also the kind that doesn't use canned hash, so Peter ordered the basic breakfast. He subsequently declared their bacon the best he's ever eaten. I found this out too late to have any, but it really did look the way you'd expect bacon to look in an ideal world. Meta-bacon, if you will.
That afternoon, Rob and Sarah came into town and met up with us at Samovar Tea at Yerba Buena Gardens. The atmosphere was light and airy, but still cozy on that stormy night. The tea selection was good, well-priced, and conducive to sampling. We all liked the looks of their food and tea menu so much that we almost wished we weren't going to dinner right after. My favorite teas were the Black Velvet and Iron Buddha Oolong. We all agreed that the oolong smelled comfortingly like corn and herb.
That night, we went to RNM, which Beth had read about on someone's blog. We were interested in their "early bird" prix fixe menus. Unfortunately, the prix fixe options turned out to be pretty limited, so most people ordered off the regular menu. Thankfully, Rob ordered off the menu because we all got to eat off his charcuterie plate! I was disappointed by my grilled pork chop because the fig-marsala sauce that it was supposed to come with was either flavorless or absent. I can't figure out which because I can't explain why the creamy, rust-colored sauce didn't look or taste like marsala wine or figs nor can I explain why there were halved figs just sitting on top of my pork chop instead of integrated into the sauce. Luckily, I fell in love with their chestnut soup. It was elegant comfort food to a tee. If it wasn't for the soup, the polenta, and the lemon curd tart, I might not recommend RNM. Also, everyone else loved their mains, so maybe I'm just picky. In addition to the grilled pork chops, people had filet mignon, "mini burgers", and coq au vin.
Sunday morning/afternoon, we capped off our culinary weekend with a trip to Ti Couz in the Mission. They're known as the first creperie in San Francisco, and arguably also the best. They make these heavenly crepes and salads , and then top it all off by offering an exotic list of beverages. At our table alone, we had menthes pressees (fresh mint lemonade), lait fraise (strawberry milk), panache (half-lemonade, half beer), and fizzy mango juice. I can't remember what they called the mango juice, but I could have had four more. Eschewing the French drinks, Peter ordered a Tequila Sunrise. Even their plain greens salad was tasty. I couldn't figure out what was in the salad dressing, but I happily dipped my bread in it nonetheless. This was the first time I'd had buckwheat crepes even though I'd heard that's how you traditionally prepare savory crepes. I've been thinking about them so much that that's what we're having for dinner tonight, provided everyone can stand to wait while the batter thins to the right texture. 11月9日 Market Street Grill - Weird 80's Sign and Decor, Good FoodTwo words for you: truffle. fries.
Before the end of the month, go to Market Street Grill for November's 25 for $25 and order yourself the rib eye steak. Promptly forget about the steak. Dip your perfectly crisp shoestring truffle fries in the lovely coin of fines herbes butter atop your steak. Cry out in rapture. Repeat.
The beauty of the 25 for $25 at Market Street Grill is that you can order any entree off the menu. If you're a fry lover, though, you'll probably want to order the steak. Half our party ordered steak, I think, because they saw and smelled the fries being delivered to other tables nearby.
I actually didn't order the steak, but I did partake of some heavenly truffle fries. The portion sizes on the steak and fries didn't make any sense at all. I felt like we had mistakenly walked into Black Angus when they delivered those plates to the table, but I didn't care where we were once I had one of those fries in my mouth. I have no idea how anyone felt about their ribeye steak because everyone was so busy raving about the fries.
I actually ordered the oven-roasted duck breast, like I always do when I go to a nice restaurant. As a meat that can go from too greasy to too dry in the blink of an eye, I think duck's a good measure of a chef. Other reasons why I order duck at restaurants: I don't ever cook it at home, it's pretty much ubiquitous at restaurants these days, and, most importantly, me and crispy duck skin, we're in love.
Market Street Grill passed my duck test with flying colors. I could tell that the meat had been perfectly cooked just by the way those fanned-out slices looked on my plate. The meat was rosy pink and exuded moisture without looking too wet. And the skin. The skin had stratified just the way I like: outside layer safely preserving its crispiness by pulling away from the glistening, complementary layer of fat underneath and the fat also delicately maintaining its distance from the meat so as not to slick it down with so much grease.
Another reason I ordered the duck over the seared sea scallops or the red lentil-crusted mahi mahi was that it came with spaetzle. Isn't that fun to say? "Shpet'-suhl". The spaetzle was chewy and airy like well-done homemade gnocchi. But, being like gnocchi, it managed to not soak up any of the flavor of the duck or the leeks that dressed it. I had also expected a cherry compote on my plate, but the three or four dried cherries sitting in the spaetzle felt like an afterthought. I like having something tart and sweet to eat with meats that have "thick" flavors and these cherries didn't exactly do it for me. They were neither sweet nor tart and they were definitely not a compote. There was also supposed to be foie gras cream on the spaetzle, which I only remembered after I ate my meal. So much for that, not that I think it was really necessary with so much already going for the duck.
I wasn't impressed with my endive salad, but I did like my lemon tart dessert. I liked all the ingredients listed in the salad, but something went wrong in the kitchen when they put them together. First, they took the hearts of the endive and chopped them up into tiny little chunks. I had expected leaves. Had there been more than three paper thin slices of fuji apple to balance things out, I wouldn't have cared as much. As it was, the endive chunks coated in walnut vinaigrette were too bitter. I also would have liked more than one-half of a toasted walnut to go with the creamy roquefort on my salad, but they may have used them all up making the walnut vinaigrette. Everyone who ordered the caesar salad was much happier with theirs. Luckily, things ended on a good note for me with the lemon tart. I especially liked the rich shortbread crust. The apple pistachio crisps were served bafflingly in cups and were not at all crisp, but apparently good nonetheless.
Wine prices were a little high compared to the other places we like to go in Seattle, but I was impressed by how generously they poured my two glasses of a very drinkable Cotes du Rhone.
After a very good first outing for this month's 25 for $25, I'm hoping we get on a roll by hitting up Ray's next. Last time the 25 for $25 rolled around in March, Ray's did good by us and successfully made us faithful, albeit irregular, customers. Ballard seems to participate in the 25 for $25 program with gusto. Some of the other restaurants we've tried as part of these biannual promotions seem inclined to treat you like a second-class citizen if you order off the special menu. Their half-hearted prix-fixe offerings indicate as much, too. Hence, I was especially impressed with Market Street Grill for including all their entrees as part of the special. (I've heard that they regularly do this on Sundays, though, so who knows.) After Ray's, I'd like to go to Restaurant Zoe, but we'll probably still be lucky to score reservations at a decent hour. Back in March, when Zoe was still pretty new, they seemed to only ever have tables available at 9:45pm on Wednesdays. 10月20日 Sushi for DummiesSince I have a track record of hosting dinners a paltry average of two times a year, I tend to go overboard when I do. One of infuriating things I do (infuriating to my husband, sister, sometimes my guests, but certainly not to me) is insist on a full menu. I don't think it's too ambitious to make sure that the side dishes make sense with the main course or that there's a good balance of vegetables to meat. And so on and so forth. (This "full menu" rule only falls apart when it comes to dessert. I usually think about dessert, but rarely ever get around to actually making any because I've just come to accept that the rest of the meal takes THAT much work.)
Anyway, I only ever have people over for dinner when Peter and I host our book club. Whenever it's my book that we're discussing, I try to plan and prepare a meal that relates to the book, if possible. Last time I did this, the menu was eclectic, but was entirely composed of dishes mentioned in the book "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time." Last night, we discussed "Kafka on the Shore". I used it as an opportunity to serve a Japanese menu.
Until last night, it had been four years since I last attempted making my own sushi. I've learned a lot about cooking and working in the kitchen since then, so I felt it would be much easier this time and it was. I was able to put together a limited, but decent selection of rolls. For the vegetarians and non-fish eaters, we had: oshinko (pickled radish rolls), umeshiso (pickled plum with shiso rolls), cucumber-avocado-kaiware rolls, and cucumber rolls. For the rest of us, we had: hamachi and green onion rolls, spicy tuna rolls, and regular tuna (maguro) rolls. I also bought all the stuff for California rolls, but by the time I was ready to make those, I noticed everyone seemed to have already had their fill.
On the side, I made a cold soba dish with ham, sauteed mung bean sprouts, and cucumber, dressed with soba tsuyu. I also pan-fried two dozen frozen vegetable gyoza and boiled a bag of frozen edamame. I had planned to include kinpira renkon (braised lotus root) and sunomono (a cucumber and daikon salad) but the fifteen or so rolls of sushi took longer to make than I thought they would. The sushi turned out really pretty, though, so it was totally worth the time. The last time I made sushi, it was a colossal mess. Sticky rice everywhere. Mis-shapen, gargantuan "rolls". Back when we were going to the sushi bar about once every two weeks, I took care to observe the chef. Applying the following tips helped things go much more smoothly this time:
I didn't get a chance to use that last item last night, but I'm pretty sure it would have solved the sticky sushi mat situation that made my last sushi-making attempt such a debacle. I'll find out for sure tonight when I use up that "krab" and all the tobikko, avocado, cucumber, and sesame that I prepped but didn't use last night!
8月10日 Quartier des Restaurants FrançaisI must have been really good in a past life because I can't imagine what I've done in this one to deserve four French restaurants within walking distance of home. Sorry to gush, but as a Francophile and a foodie, I feel like I've won the Publisher's Clearinghouse. (And all without buying a single magazine.)
Of these, Rover's has been around the longest, since August 1987, and is one of those places you can only afford to eat once a year (or twice, if you're lucky like I was!). Voila! is a bistrot that's been open since June 2004, giving it the distinction of having been in business for more than twice as long as any other restaurant to have occupied that same location. Cremant is a French country-style place that opened this past March. Saint-Germain just opened in the past month or so, sometime while we were living in the neighborhood and therefore was a huge surprise to me when I recently took 520 home for the first time in six weeks. It seems like it'll be a fairly casual place focused on quiches and salads.
Four seems like a glut, but they all offer very different menus, so I'm really hoping they all stick around. I feel pretty good about the first three, but we'll have to see about Saint-Germain since I haven't been there yet.
Check out this map I gleefully made to illustrate what the heavens have bestowed upon me and my neighbors: 8月8日 My Favorite ChickenI don't know why it's so hard to find chicken with skin on it these days, but I blame the 90s. Everyone's been scared to eat the best part of the chicken ever since then, but they'll still scarf down Baked Lay's and Snackwell's and call themselves health-conscious. I'd rather eat my chicken whole one day and then balance it out with salad another day.
Last night, I made oven-fried chicken, my absolute favorite way to eat chicken and one of my favorite things to eat in general. I even like it more than actual fried chicken even though some of my fondest memories are of eating KFC with my parents and sisters in the middle of summer in the one room in our house that had A/C. Fried chicken, cole slaw, mashed potatoes and corn on the cob are my quintessential summer meal.
When I make oven-fried chicken, it's a variation on a recipe I first made years ago (from The Joy of Cooking, I think). Typically, I take breadcrumbs, crumbled/powdered Parmesan cheese, garlic powder, cayenne, black pepper, and salt and mix it all in a bowl. I eyeball the amounts so that the recipe is a little different every time, but I listed the ingredients for the breadcrumb mixture in descending order if you're interested in giving it your own spin. After I mix up the breadcrumbs and other ingredients, I take my pieces of chicken and dip them in raw, scrambled eggs before coating them thoroughly with the breadcrumb mixture. I put a couple pats of butter in a baking dish and then set the breadcrumb-encrusted chicken in the dish and cook it for about 45 minutes in a preheated oven at 350 degrees. I think the actual temperature and cooking time must be different from what I remember because last night it took a full hour. I would probably say it would have taken 45 minutes at 375, but any higher and you run the risk of burning the crust. I use metal tongs to flip the chicken about halfway through the cooking time. The crust comes out gorgeously golden and crispy.
My recipe for a basic cole slaw is equally ambiguous. I prefer cole slaw with mayo to the recipes without, again because KFC was my first introduction to cole slaw. First, I measure out a little less than a quarter-cup of sugar and then even less still of the vinegar (white wine or cider) into a large bowl. I add a couple heaping tablespoons of mayo to the bowl and stir it up a little so that the sugar dissolves. Then, I shred or slice a head of cabbage very thinly and add it to the bowl. As I'm distributing the dressing over the cabbage, I sprinkle some celery salt to taste. I also grate a medium-sized carrot directly on top of the cabbage. Then, I add a bit of salt and black pepper to taste.
While my cole slaw is a lot like the kind that KFC makes, my potatoes aren't so much. First of all, I never make gravy to go with except at Thanksgiving. The rest of the year, I use the same mashed potato recipe that I make at Thanksgiving but I serve it plain. I make mashed potatoes from a Sunset magazine recipe that was a big hit at Thanksgiving when Tina and celebrated together during her semester in New York City. The recipe includes sauteed garlic and yellow onion, heavy whipping cream, butter, a little salt, and some sour cream. Last night, I didn't have the recipe on hand, so I forgot to buy the sour cream, but I don't think anyone missed it.
We had lots of leftovers because I tend to cook like I'm cooking for an army. The chicken isn't as good the second day, but still pretty tasty. Hopefully, we can finish up the leftovers tonight instead of firing up the oven like I did last night. I hadn't thought beforehand about how hot it would make the house, but I guess it did add an additional "summery" quality to the meal. :) 6月9日 Body. For. Life.<DISCLAIMER>
I have been threatened by various individuals to never talk about my weight again or about my diets. Those individuals should not read this post. Pretend this post never existed. Just close the browser window now. I can't help that I am food obsessed and have been blessed/cursed with a bottomless pit for a stomach instead of two hollow legs. The point is, as long as I continue to eat, my weight is necessarily a concern. And that's going to be the annoying thing about me until I lose the weight.
<END DISCLAIMER>
<DISCLAIMER, PART 2>
Although I appear to be a reasonable weight for a woman my age, I am, as of today, twenty-seven whole pounds heavier than I was ten years ago. No joke. Do you know what kind of percentage that is on a person my height?? In the past six years, I have been both eight pounds heavier and nine pounds lighter than I am right this moment. (That first time I did the Atkins diet, I went from that high peak to that low peak in a record six weeks.) Most of the time, I slide around somewhere in between. What I'm saying is that this is a lot of variance for someone as short as I am. More importantly, it's also a lot of psychic trauma for someone as vain as I am! Would you believe that I've had to wear the same two pairs of jeans for the past two years because my thighs are both so muscle-bound and so covered in fat that I can't find any other jeans that fit? Pity me because the pocket and belt loop on one of those jeans have fully come apart and I just got a small hole in the leg of the other one! Also, my knees hurt sometimes. If joint pain doesn't tug at your heart strings, I don't know what else will.
<END DISCLAIMER, PART 2>
I have been following a Body for Life diet and exercise program for the past thirty days and I want to talk about it. Although I love the prescribed weight and interval training, I have not been great about the exercise. I like the weight training best of all because I can convince myself that I'm at least getting stronger even though I'm not losing any weight OR inches. And it also makes me happy to think that having more muscle raises your metabolism. I dream of the day I can sit on the couch and just burn, burn, burn that fat. I comfort myself with these thoughts and spend endless hours pinching the fat covering up my slowly burgeoning triceps so that it'll be easier for my body to consume. If I am going to all this effort to SCULPT my body, I want everyone to know I'm doing it just by looking at me, goddammit!
The interval training has been fun, too. Ever since I found out that it's okay to go above your target heart rate zone when you're doing interval training, it's all I want to do! It's both fun and frightening to think, "This is a piece of cake!" and "I wonder if the heart rate monitor is right and my Tiny Tim heart is going to go kaput if I keep this up!" I'm hoping that I am actually training myself to operate efficiently at a higher pace because I'm sick of the feeling that I could go indefinitely only at a super-slow speed. I'm never able to maintain that super-slow speed off the treadmill so I don't see my training on the treadmill as having been super practical thus far. I'm sure I've fallen in love with interval training because I'm afraid to get outside and do long runs in preparation for my race. The half-marathon is exactly one month away.
Surprisingly, the easiest part of the Body for Life program has been the diet. When I read the sample diets in the book, I thought, "This guy is ridiculous. How could you do this diet if you weren't cooking any food that tastes good? I am going to follow this plan without protein shakes. I am going to follow this diet and still eat well." Bill Phillips has apparently never heard of spices and doesn't seem to be the biggest fan of vegetables. I did my research and I have been able to cook foods that allow me to meet the whole balance of protein and good starches requirement. One of these days, I might even put together a bunch of Body for Life-approved recipes.
Two things about the diet portion of the Body for Life program have saved my life: 1) the fact that I can eat peanut butter on whole wheat toast for breakfast and as a snack before kung fu class; and 2) the fact that I have one free day every week to eat whatever I want whenever I want. Because of the free day, I think, I've given in to temptation a lot less than I ever would have under any other circumstances. Only three failures in the whole month and two of them happened this week.
Even though I haven't been perfect about the diet (or the exercise), I have at least discovered some wonderful side benefits to this Body for Life thing. Most shockingly, I can now stop at one handful of...whatever. I am the poster child for the slogan claiming that you "can't eat just one". The frequent, small meals have successfully shrunken my stomach so that I can, in fact, eat just one. Of course, every free day that I spend wolfing down a plate and a half of onion rings at Denny's or, more likely, three slices of my own rhubarb pie is another day that my stomach gets successfully restretched.
Also beneficial: I am way less likely to give in to temptation. I'm amazed at how easily the food monster in me is quieted by the promise of all the pizza and ice cream it can eat on the holy free day. I've had many opportunities to eat mid-week cookies, pie, ice cream, and chips, but I have turned most of them down. (Had I written this post last week, I could have truthfully said that I turned them all down. I had no idea that beer could be my weakness.) For the most part, I'm pretty happy to just eat a pear and a scoop of cottage cheese while everyone else around me eats junk.
Now, maybe if I could just get the food and exercise in sync, I'd actually see some progress in my numbers. The first two weeks, I lost two pounds and I lost a half inch on my waist. However, the last time I checked a few days ago, those two pesky pounds are back and I've gained a quarter inch on my waist! I feel like I should go back to counting calories like I did the first week, but that was a lot of work and is apparently not a required part of the program.
I just want to make it to the 12-week mark on the program. By then, I expect I'll have actually changed my habits toward food, but God help me if I don't also lose fourteen pounds in the process! |
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