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May 31, 2006
Paula Zahn Now Show Tonight!
That's right bloggiefriends, they gave us about four hours notice. We'll be on the show tonight at 8 pm.
Can somebody tape it?
Posted by april at 4:36 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Two Minutes Earlier
Yesterday as I was on the Northeast Extension of the Pennsylvania Turnpike, traffic slowed to an abrupt stop just south of the Lehigh Valley rest stop, and I heard ambulances and saw flashing lights. Sure enough, a terrible accident involving an overturned tractor trailer had just happened a few miles up the road. Conveniently enough, I was close enough to the rest area to get off the road and wait out the 1.5 hour turnpike closure/traffic jam from a comfortable park bench instead of sitting in my car. But the entire event scared me. I came so close to being right in the middle of a huge accident. I called my mom and MR to assure them that I was fine, in case they tuned into traffic reports and heard that my route was closed due to an accident.
I had been delayed slightly in my leaving the office to head out to Scranton. One of my staff was late for our morning meeting, then I had to fend off a couple of incoming calls just as I was walking out the door. My gas tank was low so I stopped before hitting the turnpike. I usually leave quite a lot of extra time, as I am perpetually early. But yesterday I was cutting it a bit too close for my taste.
I'm glad I didn't leave two minutes earlier.
As I sat at the rest stop savoring the megabrownie (260 calories, 26% of the RDA of every essential nutrient) MR had packed for me to eat as a convenient on-the-road lunch, I pondered how so many people, when hearing about CR, respond with, "But you could get hit by a truck tomorrow."
Well, that's true. As the artist formerly known as Prince said (when he was still Prince), "We could all die any day." Is it worth the time and energy CR takes to possibly live a bit longer?
Of course I think it is. I've blogged many times about the immediate improvements in my health and well-being that my CR practice has bestowed upon me. From the obvious effects (being thin, looking younger, having more energy, never getting sick) to the more surprising (lowered anxiety, more mental calm) to the downright bizarre (finding the love of my life and dragging him back to my country where I keep him locked in a box all day writing about future life-extending biotechnology and baking megamuffins), CR has improved my life in ways that no truck or bus could take away no matter how hard it hit me.
People plan for the future. They invest in education, houses, paying off credit card debt, saving for the future. I invested a whole lot in my education (even with most of it paid for by financial aid, Yale isn't cheap!), and ten years after graduation I just finished paying off my student loans. The investment has served me well. MR and I are on the verge of buying a house. That's an investment that everyone agrees makes a ton of sense for a young couple with 2.5 cats (I count Kieffer as at least a cat and a half.)
CR is an investment too. It's a downpayment on a future of feeling young and healthy, and being able to credibly flirt with younger men when all the women your age are fat and wrinkly. I don't want to think of my body as something that I rent -- I'm putting the work into it now so that I can enjoy living in it for many years to come.
Posted by april at 12:38 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
May 29, 2006
Channel 4
Apparently, is the coolest channel in the UK. And tonight, some documentary film makers from this most cool channel have joined us for dinner and some filming.
Christopher and Michael, whom we met at the CR Conference, are doing a documentary on Aubrey de Grey and life-extension. They're my favorite reporters -- the most fun, and the most enthusiastic about my food. I served:
gazpacho
CR quesadillas
scallops sauteed in white wine with cilantro and garlic
asparagus with olive oil and the juice of a fresh lemon
hazelnut chocolate pear parfaits
They loved the food. They had the sense to be hungry. How irksome that so many reporters don't save their appetites for my food! These had eaten nothing all day but a half a croissant for breakfast, so they were starving by the time they crossed our threshold. At the end of the meal they said they felt quite satisfied. and couldn't eat another bite. I served them the same meal I served MR, except with the addition of a CR quesailla, which is such a fun CR treat that I couldn't resist serving it to our across the Atlantic guests.
We had a fantastic meal. These are by far my favorite reporters. They are just nice people, and they don't seem to have an axe to grind. They're interested in who we are and what we do, and not hell-bent on proving that we're freaks. It seems to me that often media folk have decided, prior to meeting CR practitioners, that we must be isolated miserable people. The media folk who have joined us for meals seem to be the exception -- all have been quite respectful and pleasant -- but these guys are the absolute most fun. They even liked my cat... but more on that later.
The meal started out with gazpacho served in the giant red wine goblets that Little MR gave me for my birthday/housewarming. Here's the recipe:
2 cups Clamato juice
2 green peppers
1 cucumber
1/3 red onion (medium)
1 tablespoon tarragon white wine vinegar
juice of one fresh lemon
1 teaspoon Worchtershire sauce (sp???)
large dash cumin
small dash paprika
dash hot sauce (Tabasco or whatever)
1 teaspoon flax oil per person (add at last minute while serving)
Fresh ground pepper
Blend the veggies in a blender until smooth but not liquid. Mix with juice (you can use low sodium V-8 if you wish) and stir. Begin adding spices and adjust to taste. Allow to sit overnight in fridge for maximum blending of flavors, and then add flax oil just before serving, asking your guests to stir it in as they take their first bite.
I served the gazpacho with a fantastic French rose specificially picked out for the recipe by the fine dudes at Moore Brothers Wine Company, the most awesome wine store on the planet. These guys have been with me through my entire CR journey and know what I mean when I say "I want a wine that drinks like a meal." They picked me a wine with hints of cherry tomato, and it was heavenly with the gazpacho. Our British friends also had a CR quesadilla (low carb tortilla, nonfat cheese, chipoltle salsa) with their gazpacho course.
The next course was the scallops cooked in dry white wine with cilantro and garlic, with asparagus very lightly steamed and topped with fresh lemon and olive oil. I meant to serve a dry white from The Brothers with this, but we were loving the rose so much that we finished the bottle before cracking open the white. The gentlemen guests loved the food, made appropriate noises of enjoyment, and shared with us a documentary filmmaking rule that they do not film anyone eating. I really, really appreciate that. Who wants to be filmed with cottage cheese in their hair and a mouth full of greens? Un-attractive!
The grand finale was the hazelnut pear parfait served in Mary's gorgeous wine glasses. It's one of the easiest dishes on earth, and every time MR eats it he has a religious experience akin to Nirvana. You simply take about 100 grams of pear per person, dice it, cover it with cinnamon, microwave it for 2 - 4 mins, then layer the pears with 1/4 cup nonfat ricotta, and 2 teaspoons Walden Farms chocolate sauce. On top of all the layers add a teaspoon hazelnut oil and 8 g hazelnuts. Your guests will freak out.
The filmmakers got some great footage of the parfait... I really enjoyed watching Michael the cameraman zoom in for a closeup from many different angles. We had a ton of fun chatting over dinner, and Christopher revealed that he is thinking of taking up CR. I'd love to have both of them join our CR brethren, as they're the kind of fun people whom you just want to live forever.
The lowlight of the evening occured when Kieffer peed on Michael the cameraman's camerabag. Luckily, the object was waterproof, so we rescued the camera equipment and dumped the bag in the washing machine. Kieffer hasn't inappropriately eliminated since last September when he became unhinged after his new step-father MR left for a week to go to SENS (note that my cat's inappropriate elimination episodes always originiate, somehow, with a connection to Aubrey de Grey. I assure you, I'm not blaming Aubrey... I'm just saying!) The filmmakers were incredibly forgiving and moved right along like nothing had happened. The British are so polite, aren't they? The cat pees on your bag... carry on!
Overall, it was the most fun dinner party I've had in ages. I wish those guys were from the US so they could hang out with us more. They got good footage of us, the food, and the cat, but they never made me feel like I was under a microscope. I can only imagine that they are very good at what they do, since you'd think that the job of the documentary film maker must be to make the subjects feel at ease so they behave normally even in the abnormal situation of being filmed. I felt very comfortable, and had a great time.
And they liked the food. That's what really matters to me.
Posted by april at 10:46 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Memorial Day Quorn Dogs and Rhubarb Stew
For Memorial Day, I made a CR fun food: Quorn dogs wrapped in low carb tortillas (Trader Joe's brand -- no transfats) with a fat free cheddar single wrapped inside, then microwaved for a low cal hotdog! Tons of fun! I also used up the rest of the rhubarb in an unusual way: I made a stew by simmering green pepper, grape tomatoes, rhubarb, garlic, beet green stems, and eggwhites together into a delicious, out of the ordinary rhubarb stew. I highly recommend doing savory dishes with rhubarb. Last weekend I made a Quorn stir fry with diced rhubarb. It's not just for pies anymore!
Tonight the British filmmakers are coming over... I hope they like the food!
Posted by april at 1:16 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Are There Real Vegans In That?
That's what I asked the barista at the local coffee shop as she offered me a sample of "vegan coconut cake." She looked aghast and began to explain, "A vegan is..."
"I was vegan for five years," I stopped her. "I was making a joke."
Has our country lost its sense of humor? Or am I just particularly warped?
Posted by april at 9:08 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
May 28, 2006
Beets!
Thanks to all for the beet recipes! Here are a few:
From Judith:
Shredded Beet Salad with Avocados & Strawberries
Alive magazine, Aug '05
2 large beets, peeled
1.5 TBsp olive oil
1 tsp mustard seeds ( I used Dijon)
1 TBsp honey (try Splenda)
2 navel or blood oranges *
2 avocados, peeled & thinly sliced
12 strawberries, thinly sliced
1 TBsp fresh, chopped mint
Grate beets & set aside in a medium-sized bowl. Heat olive oil gently in a saucepan over medium heat. Add mustard seeds & cook about 1 minute or until they pop & turn gray. Remove pan from heat & stir in honey. Pour honey-mustard mixture over the beets.
Peel oranges, removing all white pith. Slice into ¼” slices.
Divide orange slices among 4 medium-sized plates. Top with a scoop of the shredded, marinated beets. Artistically place sliced avocados & strawberries around the plates & sprinkle a bit of fresh mint on top.
Serves 4.
We think it would work better without the oranges at all. The marinated beets, strawberries & avocados taste quite wonderful together; the oranges seem out of place, taste-wise.
From Zeynep:
This is what I do with beets: I boil them (or steam if
you prefer) with skin on. After they're done, nice and
soft, I peel them, slice them and add chopped fresh
garlic, salt, vinegar and drizzle with olive oil.
Voila! Beet salad!
From Priscilla:
For beets: although I do like them just grated raw on a salad occasionally or even in a veggie juice, one of my favorite recipes, I've adapted to my newer way of eating:
roast beets until tender (I clean them -- do not peel -- cut all but about an inch of the long tip and stems -- wrap in foil and place in a pan - this is important because they can get juicy and mess up your oven -- I bake them for about an hour at a fairly high temp, as it takes a while for them to get fork-tender).
When the beets have cooled, the skin just pops right off and the beets are roasted and delicious just like that on a salad. But an older recipe call for dicing them, adding in toasted walnuts and blue cheese crumbles, topped with a mustardy balsamic vinaigrette.
What I do now is add just some plain walnuts and drizzle on some balsamic vinegar and a touch of flax oil. Not as spectacular as the old recipe, but delicious too. Oh, and now I put them on a bed of spring greens.
Thanks very much! It's great to hear from readers who are out there thinking creatively about how to use wonderful ingredients like beets to make healthy, delicious foods!
I'm sorry I've been so busy and not able to write... but at least I'm finally using those beets! I decided to make a beet soup... sorta like a borcht... because the beets are now a week old and I thought any lack of freshness would be less apparent in a cooked dish. I'm simmering diced beets into no salt organic veggie broth for about two hours, then I'm going to add a half cup of yogurt and a tablespoon of nonfat sour cream. Serving for MR's lunch today drizzled with a teaspoon of flax oil (that's for that idea, Priscilla!) along with an asparagus and shiitake mushroom tatta. Yummy beets!
Tomorrow those charming film makers from London who are working on a documentary re: Aubrey de Grey are coming to our house for dinner! Oh, and they're going to film too!
Posted by april at 9:28 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 26, 2006
Save The Beets!
I've been way too busy this week, and I'm sorry I haven't written. I also haven't done much cooking. Weekend cooking was great, but since Monday it's been either all my quotidian foods or eating out with colleagues or Mom. I'll be doing some good cooking this Monday when the filmmakers who are doing a program on Aubrey de Grey are coming to the house to eat dinner with us (and do some filming too!) but this week has been devoid of exciting recipes.
Meanwhile, I bought some fresh beets at the Allentown Farmers' Market last Friday that I haven't cooked, and I must cook them before I go bad. Quick: email me your best beet recipe! I can't take comments for now because the spam comment volume is just too much, so email me at april at mprize dot org and I'll post it as a comment. I hope to get the spam comment issue fixed soon.
Posted by april at 6:10 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
May 21, 2006
People Die Too Young
While listening to NPR this morning I heard the sad news that Jaroslav Pelikan died last week at 82. While to most people Pelikan was the world's foremost church historian and historian of Christianity, to me he was my college advisor and a personal friend. I fell out of touch with Professor Pelikan a few years after I left college, and I had always meant to write him to tell him how well I was doing in my chosen career. He had wanted me to go to grad school and pursue an academic career, but I had resisted, knowing that the solitude of writing and research would never work for a hyperextrovert like me. Even though I decided to leave the academic world, he remained supportive of me.
My fondest memories of Professor Pelikan happened during my freshman and sophomore years at Yale. He taught my history section of Directed Studies, a "Great Books" type program in which freshmen who win a slot through the application process get to study intensively in sections of 15 students with some of the world's most famous scholars. I remember the day when it was my turn to give a presentation to the class, and I gave Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy a new twist by comparing Fortune with the chocolate covered espresso bean, and handing out large doses of the candy to my classmates. Pelikan loved the presentation, and later told my father that the next generation lost a great teacher when I decided not to go into the academic life. Later on in the year, Professor Pelikan invited our class of 15 to dinner at his house with his beautiful wife. His entire house was decorated with pelican figurines, and his wife wore a sliver pelican necklace. His office was a room with large windows sunken into a small pond, so that he seemed to float as he worked on his books.
In a moment that may be one of the highlights of my father's life, my dad and I ate lunch at Mory's, Yale's venerable private club and the only union restaurant in New Haven. My dad was in awe of the world famous scholar whose work he had been reading for years, and I think he was surprised at how friendly, accessible and humble "Jerry" was. Dad managed not to embarass me *too* much (it wasn't nearly as bad as the year when he went around telling my seventh grade SAT scores to anyone who would listen) and we had a wonderful meal with Professor Pelikan.
My sophomore year I went through one of those rough patches that a lot of sophomores go through, when I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with my life and completely freaked out after getting dumped by a computer geek and became obsessed with learning how to program (a hobby which eventually landed me a very good job working for Yale's Academic Computing Services making a shocking $10/hour during my senior year in college and the summers before and after.) During this period of time, which I will generously label a "freak out" (and could less generously label my first experiment with stalking) I lost interest in my previous passion, history, and paid less attention to my studies, attracting the concern of my advisor Professor Pelikan. We had a heart to heart talk in his office, where instead of lecturing me about how I should work harder and focus on my history major, he listened to my confusions and frustrations and expressed support and caring. He assured me that I'd pull through it, and that in the end I had to figure out who *I* was, not just pursue an academic or career path because it was easy or what other people wanted me to do. I never forgot that talk, and have frequently though about Professor Pelikan when I've searched for the courage to go off in a new or scary direction in my life.
Just last year, Pelikan published Whose Bible Is It?: A History of the Scriptures Through the Ages. He was an extraordinarily prolific author of both scholarly and popular material. He was a wonderful teacher, and a good friend. He wrote up until the very end, and taught up until just a few years ago. He died too young.
When we talk about the possible lifespan gains from CR, people often ask if the five or ten or even twenty years that we might gain from CR are worth the trouble. When I think about what Jaroslav Pelikan could have done with five, ten, or twenty more years, I have to answer a resounding YES! 82 is considered a ripe old age in our society, and by 82 many people are sick and frail and living in a nursing home. I am grateful that Professor Pelikan was able to live in relative health and productivity up until his death. But what books would he have written between 82 and 85? Between 85 and 90? Between 90 and 100? What lectures would he have given, what students would he have inspired? The world has lost a great thinker, teacher, and writer, and I believe he died too young. It's a classic example of how bodies begin to deteriorate at just the point when experience and education combine to form tremendous wisdom. Death steals wisdom from the world, and I don't think we should quietly accept this theft anymore than we would calmly allow a thief to walk off with our computer.
CR can only get us a few years, but I believe that every life is worth so much that those years are priceless. Professor Pelikan would not have made it to the dawn of radical anti-aging biomedicine, but what graduate student today might be the next Jaroslav Pelikan, and might, if we work hard enough, benefit from the eventual development of biotechnology that can reverse the aging process? How many books might that scholar write? Is it worth investing the resources into research that it would take to develop a cure for aging? I think it is, and that's why I am a member of the Mprize Three Hundred.
I selfishly hope to make it to the day when such biotech is available, so I do CR. When I think about the loss of Professor Pelikan, I am inspired to concentrate even more on my CR, and also to get the word out that such an intervention already exists, so that others who wish to maximize their chances of living long and healthy can have the option to do that. It's easy in the day to day shuffle of 12+ hour days at work, going out for drinks with friends, going out to dinner for special occasions, and skipping the gym when there's just too much on my schedule already to let my CR slip. But I don't want to miss what could be the most productive, most rewarding, most wise years of my life.
I'll end this entry with a final tribute to Professor Pelikan. I remember my freshman year when he gave the lecture on Martin Luther. He painted a vivid picture of Luther's accidental revolution against the corrupt powers that were in the Church, and of his mixture of faith, passion and insanity that changed the world in ways that he could never have imagined. At the end of the lecture, in a moment whose memory has given me courage at every point in my life when I have made the difficult decision to stand up for what I believe in, Pelikan quoted Luther:
"Here I stand. I can not do otherwise. So help me God."
Posted by april at 9:03 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
May 18, 2006
It's Hard To Live By The Rules; I Never Could, And Still Never Do
Tonight I am listening to one of my favorite songs by The Pretenders, "The Talk of the Town." It contains the line quoted in our headline.
For many years before my conversion to CR, I was a lowfat vegan. The rules were simple: no fat, no animal products. I found it very hard to live by the rules. My body was constantly crying out for fat, and to medicate it I would eat more and more carbs. I dreamed about eggs, since they were the last recognizable complete protein I had encountered. I used to call my best friend at night (a vegan as well) and say, "I am dreaming about eggs!!!"
One thing I love about CR is that there are no forbidden foods. Like the Outback Steakhouse, "No Rules, Just Right." As few calories as you can handle, as many nutrients as you can pack in. Simple. Nothing is off limits, but you can't keep to a low calorie level if you don't get all the nutrients you need. Don't take my word for it -- do the experiment yourself. Try eating a diet made up of the RDA of everything at say, 1100 calories for a very petite female. Then try doing the same calories but with lower protein, lower fat, and fewer RDAs. You'll be hungry. All those curmudgeonly guys on the CR List are correct -- you need more protein, more unsaturated fat, and more nutrition in order to not be hungry. Change your diet and the miracle will happen: low calorie, no hunger! The body you always wanted, and a sense of mental peace that most people only get by joining a Buddhist monestary and giving up earthly delights. Besides, who wants to drink yak butter tea? ICK!!! I'll take CR any day!
It's much easier, at least for me, to live in a universe of lower calories but no limits. If I want to eat a piece of chocolate cake, I can... but I make up the calories elsewhere. It's not long (about 12 hours!) before I start craving my healthy foods: megamuffin, brewers yeast, cruciferous veggies, etc. Once the body gets used to the things that nourish it, it's hard to go back.
When I go out too much, eat too much gak, and skip my nutritious quotidian foods, I immediately feel a decrease in my overall vitality. I know how to medicate: eat healthy food!
I never could live by the rules: not low fat, not low carb, not vegan, not even vegetarian. CR isn't about eliminating this food group or that: rather, you have to make you own decisions about how you can best meet your nutritional needs at the lowest calorie level you can tolerate. That varies a great deal from person to person, and here's where personal responsibility comes in: we don't tell you what to eat! We can provide you with information based on the science and our own experience, but in the end, you decide!
CR is easier for me than veganism, than vegetarianism, than Ornish/McDougall lowfatism. I feel incredibly free when I order scallops in a restaurant... never mind that the grilled vegetables over pasta would have three times the calories. The ability to eat any food I want --- in controlled amounts -- is liberating.
Oh but it's hard to live by the rules
I never could, and still never do.
Posted by april at 8:26 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
May 16, 2006
Do We Need To Talk?
Luke and I were just sampling my salt substitute that I carry in my purse. He agreed that it's pretty good, and asked me what it was made of.
"Potassium chloride," I said.
Of course, since we are organizers of health care professionals, the first thing that jumps to mind when someone says "Potassium chloride" is that shooting a lot of the stuff into someone's veins is a good way to kill them. Nurses are always sharing information like this.
In fact, as I told Luke, the first time that MR suggested that I try this nice potassium chloride he had procured for me instead of salt, I thought he was trying to kill me.
"I was rather alarmed, as you might imagine," I told Luke, "And said, 'Honey, do we need to talk?'"
The amusing thing was that Luke and I said "Do we need to talk?" at exactly the same time in exactly the same tone of voice. Sometimes I am convinced that we are twins separated at birth -- Luke and Leia type of thing. Then I remember that he is eight years older than I am and has a PhD in philosophy, and I am again certain that we are not in any way related.
Luckily, MR was trying to extend my life, not end it. And I've cut back dramatically on my salt consumption. It would have been hard to imagine, in my past life as a salt-fiend, that I'd be carrying around a little container of no-salt in my purse. But in addition to baby scale and baby measuring cup, a baby salt-substitute shaker now rides with me everywhere I go.
Now if only I could get Luke to eat some more protein...
Posted by april at 12:04 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
May 15, 2006
Tortillas Need Home
Does anyone remember a few months back when MR and I went into a panic because the Trader Joe's guy told us they might not be selling low carb tortillas anymore? We were so scared that we asked my mom to buy a ton of them and keep them in her freezer.
Well, she's getting sick of keeping several tons of low carb tortillas in her fridge, and she's asking that we take them home. Unfortunately, our freezer too is packed with all things CR-friendly, such as organic veggies, megamuffins, and MR's lunch stews. Somehow, we must make way for low carb tortillas. Either that, or we need to throw a big CR pizza party and use them all up.
Today I ate all my meals on the road. I had to leave for work at 6 am to meet some health care professionals with flyers on their way into work, so MR packed me a brownie to eat for breakfast (260 calories, 26% of the RDA of all essential nutrients, perfectly Zoned). I had my quotidian lunch, and then went over to my mom's at dinnertime to help her with a few household tasks. I ate my brewers yeast soup, carefully packed in a microwavable jar, along with some of her freshly made meatloaf (made with Grapenuts!) and some green bean salad with balsamic vinegarette. I also had a couple of handfulls of jujubees... I find it so hard to resist the evil jujubee! They look so friendly in their little glass dish! All in all, the day came out to around 1200 calories, including my glass of wine. Not bad.
Now to bed. In the morning I pick up Luke for another wild and crazy day of making the world safe for health care professionals to join the union of their choice.
Posted by april at 9:12 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
May 14, 2006
Hazelnut Pear Parfait and Leek Gazpacho
Tonight I made a variation on a favorite dessert. It started out as CR'd trifle, in a glass dish with nonfat ricotta instead of whipped cream and megamuffin instead of cake, berries between the layers. But we were out of berries, so I decided to do a variation on the hazelnut pear dessert. In a glass bowl I layered nonfat ricotta, Walden Farms chocolate sauce, pears, hazelnuts, and hazelnut oil into a beautiful parfait. MR loved it! It would be beautiful in a large wine glass served as a parfait. Reminds me vaguely of the creme de menthe parfaits at the Angus Barn, a fancy steakhouse where my cousin had her rehearsal dinner for her wedding near wear I grew up. I wonder if I could make a CR-friendly version... vanilla yogurt, fresh mint, etc.?
I also made a gazpacho tonight, the first of the season. We had no onion, so I used leek tops. Here's my basic gazpacho:
tomato juice of some kind (the best is Clamato)
green pepper
red onion
cucumber
tomatoes
juice of fresh lemon
tarragon vinegar (or any white wine vinegar)
Tabasco
cumin
paprika
cayenne
I make a million variations on the theme: tomatillos, all tomatoes instead of tomato juice, various onions (scallions, leeks) add eggwhites, add shrimp, change the hot sauce, add curry and apples, whatever. The world of gazpacho is never-ending. Just this last week I had two great gazpachos out -- a crab meat gazpachzo at a restaurant called Stella Blu, and a regular red gazpachzo that was excellent at a local pub where I hung out with Luke and his wife Christine on Friday night. Gazpacho is one of my favorite foods to modify and play with. And what would life be without playing with food?
Posted by april at 9:12 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Subtle Saturday Supper
Last night I made a dish whose flavors were almost too subtle, but I think that if you did it with either seafood, Quorn or chicken/turkey, it would be perfect. I made it with eggwhites, which around here we use like chicken as it's the ideal complete protein source with no saturated fats. Eggwhites absord any flavor they're paired with, but in this dish the giant number of eggwhite cubes required to fulfill MR's protein needs (390 grams in dinner!) may have absorbed too much flavor. He still loved it, but try this with a protein source that lends more of its own flavor to the dish.
Boil half a pint of grape tomatoes and several cloves of garlic, minced, in 3 ounces in dry white wine. Add a green pepper or two, chopped into small cubes. Simmer until the green peppers (or you could use red) are soft and wrinkly, add protein source. Add a large handfull of cilantro and continue to simmer for another half hour or so.
I love the smell of garlic cooking in wine, and the grape tomatoes pop in this recipe to add to the broth. It's a subtle flavor, but the cilantro is delicious!
Posted by april at 6:45 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
May 13, 2006
CR and Sin
"So the real sin on this diet," said the CNN reporter as he interviewed me in our living room, "Is eating too much, not eating any particular food."
"I don't find terms like 'sin' helpful," I said, and then went on to expound upon my aversion to seeing food in moral terms. Food is a means to an end. First and foremost, food keeps us from starving to death or dying of malnutrition. Food gives our bodies the building blocks upon which we build the rest of our lives. Food can also be a powerful social glue, a way that people connect with each other. We can use food to reward ourselves or to punish ourselves. But food, in itself, has no morals. I firmly believe that there are no "bad" foods. There are only foods that get you closer to your goals, and foods that move you farther away from your goals.
I was unwilling to allow the CNN reporter to label any behavior towards food as a "sin." I find that kind of terminology and the thinking that underlies it to be singularly unhelpful in the quest to improve one's life and health. If you view eating a cookie as a sin, you're likely to eat a cookie just because you get sick of being a good little girl. However, if you remove the moralism from your language and your thinking, you might choose to eat the cookie because you enjoy the chocolate taste, or the experience of bonding with your friends over dessert. Or you might choose *not* to eat the cookie, because you have already had the number of calories you had planned to eat in the meal, and you know that if you eat the cookie you'll be tempted to skimp on more nutritious fare later in the day in an effort to make up for the calories. You might decide that the goal of enjoying chocolate bonding with friends is not as important as the goal of slowing your biological aging process. Or you might decide that splitting a cookie with a friend is fine, but that you'll skip your evening glass of wine to make up for the calories.
When you eliminate the idea of sin from your relationship with food, you suddenly have a whole lot more choices. You can have "sometimes foods" -- foods that aren't nutritious enough to make it into your quotidian diet but are still fun to have on occasion -- without feeling the slightest amount of guilt. Food is no longer a moral issue: it's all about pursuing your own personal goals in the more efficient and effective manner you can find.
People are always asking me, "Can you eat that on your diet?" when they see me bite into a chocolate chip cookie or sip a German wheat beer with a lemon at a neighborhood bar on a Friday night. I try to explain that CR isn't a "diet" in the traditional sense that some foods are off-limits. I can enjoy a beer or a chocolate chip cookie once or twice a week because my quotidian diet is so high nutrient, low calorie that I actually have room for "sometimes foods." I don't choose my foods in an effort to prove that I'm a good little girl -- experience has shown that I am not! -- but in order to meet as many of my goals as possible. I want to age as slowly as I can, and I also want to enjoy the tastes, experiences, and relationships that are pleasurable to me. Sometimes these goals fit perfectly together, such as when I'm eating a dinner with my Orange One that I've cooked to our nutritional specifications over candlelight on Saturday night. Other times, like when my friends are all eating gak and I'm hungry so I indulge, my goals seem to contradict each other.
People who do CR tend to have a very utilitarian, very non-judgmental attitude towards food. We don't eat to be "good" -- we eat to live as long and as healthy as possible. Sometimes I eat because it's fun, yummy, and I'm out with fun people, but for the most part I eat because I enjoy the foods that nourish my body. Many of the people who do CR have always been thin, and therefore have no motivation to lose weight. But they want to live as long as possible, and weight loss is a side-effect. A scientific mindset, where self-experimentation is the order of the day, rules in the CR Society. It's far beyond the moralism of "good" foods and "bad" foods --- it's about finding out what's the more life-giving, life-sustaining lifestyle we can live now so that we keep living, and feeling great, as long as possible.
Posted by april at 8:24 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
May 11, 2006
What Is Crazy?
MR describes CR as a "crazy diet" in jest, but I asked him to stop saying that because even though he's joking, I think it gives the media an excuse to make us sound much weirder than we are. The entire definition of "crazy" bears some examination in the context of CR. People have said that it's "crazy" to weigh and measure everything you eat, or to refuse to go out to restaurants, or to maintain a lower body weight than what most people would consider normal. So that must make a lot of us, for one reason or another, crazy.
I find that people often use to word "crazy" when what they mean is "not to my taste." My favorite definition, however, is one that I've heard many times but never quite nailed down the author of the saying:
Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again yet expecting different results.
When it comes to health and nutrition, a lot of people do the same thing over and over, yet expect different results. They go on crash diets without changing their underlying attitudes towards food, then they're shocked when they gain all the weight back. They eat nutrient-free gak and then are surprised that they're hungry a short while later. They fill their bodies with poison, then they express indignation that their health declines and their bodies age.
I'd like to propose a different definition of crazy: Crazy is acting in ways that don't match your goals.
For instance: if your goal is to extend life as much as possible through the only currently available intervention that has been shown to extend life in mammals, you would CR as intensely as you can. You'd be absolutely sure that you were getting adequate nutrition, you'd keep your calories as low as you could tolerate, and you'd minimize your risks by wearing your seatbelt, doing bone-building exercise, and looking both ways before your cross the street.
If you found that keeping your calories consistent day to day by weighing and measuring your food helped you to maintain the lowest number of calories, you'd be crazy to do otherwise, because then your actions wouldn't match your goals.
Of course, making your actions match your goals requires figuring out what your goals are. Whole shelves of self-help books have been devoted to helping people figure out what they actually want... the best spiritual traditions, in my opinion, give people the tools to answer that very perplexing question. The Robin Williams character in the movie Dead Again had this rather memorable line:
"Find out what you are and be that."
I have struggled with my own goals and priorities because some of the things that are important to me are in direct conflict with each other. I want to slow my biological aging process as much as possible so that I can catch that train to escape velocity, and so that I don't look like crap when my boyfriend is still sexy and gorgeous cause he ate more orange peels and drank fewer margaritas. Yet, I also want to go out with my friends to nice restaurants and enjoy the food, wine, and atmosphere. It's easy to do both at my current, moderate level of CR, and I get many health benefits, including lower cholesterol, lower blood pressure, never (never ever ever!) getting sick, and loving the way I look and feel. But it's almost impossible to take my calories lower without becoming both more consistent in my day to day calorie intake and more strict about nutrition. I've gone this far by eating a very low calorie, high nutrient quotidian diet most days, then going out for a lighter than pre-CR but unmeasured meal at a restaurant once or twice a week. The unmeasured meal usually contains at least some foods that aren't nutrient dense and/or that have sugar or saturated fat. For example, yesterday after lunch out with some co-workers we split a Starbucks chocolate chunk cookie. No big deal, at my moderate level of CR. But to go lower would mean that I would really need to replace those chunky chocolate calories with something that has nutrition. Would I miss the cookie? Maybe. Would I miss the experience of partaking in shared food with co-workers? Maybe. What's more important: the cookie, the co-workers, or the chance of making it to the dawn of radical anti-aging biomedicine? You can't know what actions match your goals until you become very, very sure what your goals are.
One thing I've always admired and envied about MR is that he knows what he wants and makes his actions match his goals, in spite of obstacles that most people would find impossibly daunting. I find self-discipline and clarity attractive. Especially in combination with orangeness.
What's crazy, in my opinion, is living life without a clear sense of what you want or how to get there. The process of figuring out who you are and then being that isn't easy, and I suspect that most people never really even try. But the alternatives are, in my opinion, crazy.
Posted by april at 12:05 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
May 10, 2006
I Thought It Was a Car Fire But It Was Just a Plastic Bag
One of my favorite songs of all time is Fiona Apple's "Paper Bag." It's a rather creepy song, and it goes like this:
I was staring at the sky
Just wishing for a star
To pray on or wish on or something like that
I was having a sweet fix of a daydream of a boy
Whose reality I knew was too hopeless to be had
But then the devil of hope began his downward slope
And I believed for a moment that my chances
Were approaching to be grabbed
But as it came down here So did a weary tear
I thought it was a bird but it was just a paper bag.
This morning I smelled something burning in or around my car. The temp light was fine, the oil was freshly changed, but something was definitely burning. I made Luke smell it and he confirmed that something was burning, but kept insisting that my car was not on fire.
I called the service station (Joe Black's Sunoco, Ridge and Butler, I highly recommend it) and explained the situation.
"Chances are you ran over a plastic bag and now it's caught in your exhaust pipe," said the dude.
I found this explanation neither plausible nor comforting. I am a bit of a car hypochondriac: I am always convinced based on the slightest little screech or rumble that my car is about to become ill and require thousands of dollars worth of repair. It doesn't help that the transmission on my old car literally (and I know how to use that word) blew up on Christmas on I-95 in North Carolina in 2000. Spurting red transmission blood everywhere and costing me $2000 (yes, I'm an idiot for rebuilding a transmission on a car with over 250,000 miles, but no matter, I learned my lesson.)
So I go through the rest of the day convinced that my car is secretly about to explode. Finally I get done with meetings and take it to the service station.
The dude crawls under the car.
"Yup, I see it. It's a plastic bag."
He offered to put it up in a bay and remove the bag, but I said that if it wasn't hurting anything, I'd live with it till it burns itself off.
Then I ate a megamuffin, so you see this story really was about CR.
Posted by april at 9:42 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
May 9, 2006
The Importance of Protein
When people ask me how I manage to maintain a low calorie level without being hungry, I always rave about the importance of protein. The single biggest change I've made in my diet since I started CR over two years ago was to dramatically increase the protein content in my diet. I get almost all my protein from sources that contain no saturated fat: eggwhites and nonfat dairy. Between my morning eggwhite omlette with nonfat cheddar cheese (and shiitake mushrooms), my lunch time salad with fifty calories of cubed eggwhites and a cup of nonfat plain organic yogurt, my megamuffin, and my brewers yeast soup at dinner, I get over 70 g protein every day. When I go out to eat, I usually order a dish with either seafood (shrimp and scallops most of the time) or grilled chicken. When I don't get enough protein, I immediately notice an increase in my hunger and a decrease in my mental focus. Combined with exhaustion, a lack of protein can cause sugar cravings and ill will towards the rest of humanity. If I find myself in a less than Zenned out state of mind, a lack of protein is often to blame.
This morning, for the second morning in a row, I was out the door before six am to pick up Luke to run down to a hospital and drop off flyers to the health care professionals who are working to join our union. MR lovingly packed me a mega-brownie, the chocolate version of the megamuffin, a 260 calorie hunk of delicious treat that contains 26 percent of the RDA of every essential nutrient. It was delicious, but it's Zoned, so instead of my usual giant shot of protein with a teaspoon of flax oil and almost no carbs for breakfast, I ate 30% protein, 30% carb, 30% fat. Nutritionally, the mega-brownie is a work of genius, and for most people it's an ideal breakfast. But I find I really need a huge shot of almost pure protein at breakfast to both maintain my CR-Zen calm and to keep from being hungry later. A mega-item once a week or so for breakfast is just fine, but two days in a row left my protein a bit low. I felt fine till lunch, when I ate my usual sixty calories worth of almonds (that's about eight almonds) with my salad and a cup of nonfat organic plain yogurt. I didn't realize at the time that something was missing, but by 3:00 I was hungry again. Usually I would eat a half a megamuffin either with lunch or as an afternoon snack, but this time Edward called me from the road on his way back from a meeting and asked if I wanted to go out for lunch to discuss a rather pressing work matter. He hadn't gotten lunch due to an earlier meeting, and I figured I'd just accompany him and not eat, since I had already eaten my lunch. But he drove straight to the Ruby Tuesday's, home of my favorite salad bar, so I decided to forgo my megamuffin (I'm eating a whole one between some combination of lunch, afternoon snack and dinner these days, so that's 275 calories) and turn my second lunch into dinner, thereby making room for a big salad with the salad bar's cottage cheese.
After two big plates of vegetables, two scoops of cottage cheese, and a small plate of fruit, I was quite satisfied, and called MR to let him know I wouldn't need him to make me dinner. But I was surprised that I had been that hungry so shortly after eating my normal lunchtime almonds, salad and yogurt.
When I got home it dawned on me that my fifty calories of eggwhites had been missing from the lunch MR had packed for me. In the hurry to get me out the door before six am, he had forgotten to weigh them and throw them into my salad container. Between that and the lower than normal protein in my breakfast for the second day in a row, it's no surprise that I was ravenous by the time I darkened the door of the Ruby Tuesday's. Protein is the greatest killer of hunger. To paraphrase the old Snickers commercial: Protein really satisfies. Without enough protein, I get hungry again quickly.
My second lunch, like my first, was very nutritious and delicious -- the RT's salad bar contains heavenly veggies, lowfat cottage cheese, and a nice selection of fruits, at least where I live. So my second lunch at about 3 pm turned into dinner, and I just drank a small glass of wine at the table while MR ate his dinner of CR friendly roasted red pepper and shiitake mushroom lasagna.
I did, however, experience that other symptom of low protein combined with exhaustion: the evil sugar craving. After leaving the office I stopped by my mom's house to see if she needed anything and visit a bit... she's still recovering from her surgery, and can't lift or bend over much. She keeps a bunch of candy on hand at all times, including the almost irresistable jujubee, and as soon as I saw the hard gummy item languishing in the candy dish, the sugar craving hit. I had a handful, and then another. Not too many calories - it's 124 calories for 56 jujubees, and it would take awhile to eat 56 jujubees. But the sugar roller coaster is never a good thing to step on, especially not when I'm already tired. I took a short nap on my mom's couch before gathering up the energy to take out her trash.
I may be tired now (in addition to running around like a crazy person at all hours for work, I was awaked by a combination of MR's insomnia and my howling calico cat at three am and never got back to sleep) but I would have been unable to handle this level of activity pre-CR. The extra energy CR gives me makes it possible to work crazy hours, maintain a relationship, house, and cats, and still have two brain cells left to rub together. Even when I'm exhausted from lack of sleep or stress, I still feel more alive, more vital, and less like a sack of potatoes than I ever did pre-CR. It's amazing what a difference a few calories (fewer) can make.
Posted by april at 8:06 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
May 8, 2006
CNN Is Here!
The CNN people want to film me typing on my blog, so here I am. MR is doing the dishes, and Kieffer is relaxing on the reporter's coat. Here's what I made for lunch:
Salad of organic arugula, strawberries and blackberries with a balsamic and flax oil vinegarette
Scallops cooked in chardonnay with garlic, cilantro and grape tomatoes
Asparagus with olive oil and fresh lemon juice
Hazelnut pear dessert "pizzas": Trader Joe's low carb tortillas topped with fat free ricotta, Walden Farms' calorie-free chocolate sauce, fresh pears, then baked and drizzled with hazelnut oil just before serving.
I made a CR lasagna (yellow squash, roasted red peppers, shiitake mushrooms, non-fat cottage cheese, and tomato sauce with a bit of shiraz and garlic mixed in, for the crew, but they haven't eaten yet as they've been too busy filming. I'm beginning to worry that their lunch has gotten cold... the Southern hostess in me wants to feed everyone who comes into the house. Kieffer has been unusually well-behaved, and the crew has been very patient with him. I was afraid he's make a run at the scallops, but he was sufficiently distracted by the comfortable nest made by the reporter's coat on the couch that he stayed out of the kitchen.
The show, Paula Zahn Now, may air sometime next week. I'll let you know when as soon as I know!
Posted by april at 2:32 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 7, 2006
This Soup May Make You Cry
MR really wanted me to use up the tough upper green parts of leeks. He was so convinced that they were edible that he told me to close my eyes and open my mouth (which I did, a testament to the high level of trust and openness in our relationship) and put a leek top in for me to chew. Not bad, he was right. So I blended up 306 grams of leek tops with a cup of nonfat plain organic yogurt. Stirred it into no-salt organic veggie broth, am about to add chunks of eggwhites for protein (the great thing about eggwhites is that they absorb whatever flavor you put them into, so they're a very neutral protein source, not to mention high quality with no saturated fat) and add lemon and garlic. I tasted the soup and it tastes great. There's only one problem. Since it's nothing but fresh onions, I'm afraid it may make MR cry. He's not the kind of man who is afraid to cry, but there hasn't been a reason for him to cry in so long since we've been so happy together. I'm a little worried that he'll weep all through dinner as he consumes a giant volume of fresh leek soup. I asked him before making the soup if he'd prefer that I steam or simmer the leeks in broth before blending them, but he said no. He may pay for this decision with tears. At least it will taste good!
Posted by april at 6:48 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
May 6, 2006
Gumbo-esque
Today fresh okra was on sale at Whole Foods, so I picked up a bunch and was inspired to make a gumbo for dinner. Back in my vegan days, I used to make a tofu gumbo that I learned from a Dean Ornish book, so I figured I'd adapt that to make it with eggwhites. Like tofu, eggwhites take on the flavor of whatever you marinate them in. However, as I was keeping the carbs low, I didn't want to use all the old ingredients. So here's how I made a gumbo-esque dish that turned out very well:
I simmered the bottom of one leek, sliced and diced, in a cup of boiling veggie broth. Added green peppers and two tablespoons no salt tomato paste. Allowed that to boil up, and then threw in the okra and the eggwhites. Spiced with cumin, garlic powder, and Tabasco sauce. Allowed to simmer for about an hour and then drizzled a teaspoon of olive oil on top after removing from heat, just before serving. MR loved it. Next time I may do it with whole peeled canned tomatoes, or fire-roasteds.
For dessert, I served 250 grams of the organic ripe strawberries I bought on sale this morning, topped with a fourth cup of fat free ricotta whipped with a baby sea-monkey spoon of sucralose, for a berries and cream flavor and drizzled with a teaspoon of flax oil just before serving. Flax oil goes very well on fruit or dairy, and fat free ricotta really is a miracle food.
All in all, dinner was delicious and nutritious. Hazelnuts on the side of MR's dish to up the fat, lots of eggwhites for a neutral tasting protein, and delicious okra. Our fridge is so packed now that I fear an avalanche, but there was a great sale on organic grape tomatoes -- $1.99 a pint! -- that I bought ten. As I can easily eat four pints or more a day, I figured I may as well. Today I ate three pints of grape tomatoes, all within about an hour with my lunch. We weighed them and found that the average calories in a pint of grape tomatoes is 60. Not too bad, for what appears to be a bizarre obsession. 180 calories of grape tomatoes is a whole lot healthier than 180 calories of the things most people pig out on!
Posted by april at 8:22 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Would You Drink a Margarita?
That's one of the questions the CNN reporter who is coming to interview us on Monday asked me. "Sure," I said. Margaritas, for me, are a "sometimes food." (Yes, I am paraphrasing Cookie Monster.) For most CR practitioners, there are no off-limits foods. CR isn't a diet in the traditional sense that this or that is not allowed. It's a question of keeping your total calories down while keeping your nutrition high. Some people find it easier to do this by eliminating certain foods, and in my early CR practice I cut out foods that had been problematic for me pre-CR so as to minimize temptation to go overboard. But these days I can drink margaritas on Cinquo de Mayo without fearing a backslide into the pre-CR horror days of the nacho and margarita diet.
Last night I went out after work with some co-workers to the local Mexican restaurant. We split a pitcher of margaritas and some appetizers: nachos, guacamole, and soft shell crab. Wow, soft shell crab is so good! I had it for the first time at the home of fellow-CR practitioner Mark from New Jersey, and I've loved it ever since. I don't make a habit of drinking margaritas or eating nachoes any more... in fact, it's probably been six months since I had done either. But my CR practice is flexible enough to allow for occasional going out with the gang for less than optimally nutritious food, since I keep my calories a little low beforehand and then lower afterwards. My body almost self-regulates now: after eating more calories than usual yesterday, I probably won't be very hungry all day today and will keep my calories a good deal below my average.
When I think about going lower with my calorie average, I always think about eliminating these going out with friends feasts. I really can't lower my quotidian diet calories without getting unpleasantly hungry, so the going out would have to go, or at least be cut back. While this would probably be as good for my budget as for my life-extension ambitions, eating out is a big part of my social life, and one that I'm not yet willing to compromise on. It's an ongoing topic of thought and discussion with MR, who never really liked eating out anyway so doesn't miss it. That's a good example of how different CR practitioners make different choices based on different priorities. No two of us are alike, either in the foods we eat or the way we manage social situations. Since any reduction in calories without compromising nutrition seems to yield positive health benefits, I try to encourage people to find comfortable compromises that work for them. But since I know that genuine extension of the maximum lifespan, as opposed to just getting the benefits of obesity avoidance, is only likely to happen when the animal (me, in this case) is reducing calories to a level that we can't quite quantify but that is below that which is required to just "maintain a healthy weight," I frequently consider taking my caloric average lower than my current 1300.
The media often portrays CR practitioners as reculsive, obsessive freaks, and I fear that they'll be disappointed with me since I'm not like that at all. I'm an extreme extrovert, I'll eat a small amount of just about anything, and rarely does a week go by that I don't join my friends in a meal out and a good bottle of wine. These things aren't important to everyone, but they're important to me. So I compromise. Meeting other CR practitioners at the conferences is fun because I see the ways in which others work CR into their lives. Most of us have families, busy social and work lives, even pets. We don't do CR in a cage in a lab like the rats (though I sometimes envy them, since they never have to do the dishes.) We live in the real world, with all its joys and challenges. Splitting a pitcher of margaritas with several of my favorite people in the world on Cinquo de Mayo is a joy for me, and it's a challenge for my CR. But I'm confident now, after two years of practice, that I'll make up the calories by being extra careful for a few days, maintaining my happy average of 1300. And I probably won't have another margarita until next Cinquo de Mayo. Now soft shell crabs may be another story...
Posted by april at 6:09 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
May 5, 2006
I Could Eat A Pint Of You
Last night as I polished off a pint of grape tomatoes -- my second for the evening -- I asked MR if he thinks my grape tomato obsession is weird. He confessed that he does, but that he thinks it's not a bad obsession to have. I love grape tomatoes so much that I eat them whole pints at a time, sometimes even standing up in the grocery store. No one thinks twice about someone who can polish off a whole pint of Ben and Jerry's ice cream, but you find a girl who eats tomatoes by the pintful and that's just bizarre.
"I love the tomatoes," I said to MR. "I love you too, but in a different way, and I'm glad I don't have to choose. I could eat a whole pint of you."
Then I broke into a rendition of Joni Mitchell's "A Case of You" with "pint" substituted for "case." Not exactly what Joni intended, but it sure gets the point across.
Work is EXTREMELY busy, so I haven't written much or cooked much. But last night I came home to a delightful surprise: MR had made green curry Quorn stir fry for dinner, and my portion was calorically identical to my quotidian brewers yeast soup! It was spicy and delicious, and filled the house with a nice curry smell. Then I had a jar of sugar free jello (20 cals) and a pint and a half of grape tomatoes for dessert. Yum!
Posted by april at 6:32 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
May 1, 2006
Eggplant Medallions with Roasted Red Pepper and Artichoke Hearts
I did so much good weekend cooking that it will take awhile to write about it all, but here's a recipe to start you off with.
I sliced a large eggplant into disks and arranged at the bottom of a baking pan. Then I covered with spoonfuls of fat free ricotta (a total of 1/2 cup). I topped that with cooked eggwhite chunks, then I put roasted red peppers (I home roast them, much yummier than store bought) and diced artichoke hearts. Covered each disk with tomato sauce and sprinkled with garlic powder and dried oregano. Baked at 300 for about 45 minutes. Drizzled with olive oil just before serving. Magnificent! You can vary the vegetables and spices you use on top of the eggplant, or even create a creamy sauce out of nonfat plain yogurt if you weren't in a tomato-y mood. But I, as we know, am always in a tomato-y mood.
Posted by april at 6:49 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Leek Tops
Help, o Bloggiefriends!
MR is distraught because I've been cooking with leeks, and of course I only use the white parts. He, like the Native Americans and the buffalo, insists on using every part of the animal, or in this case, the vegetable. But he has no idea what to do with the tough green tops. Can a bloggiefriend lend a recipe?
My domestic tranquility thanks you. The last thing I need is a giant distraught carrot.
Posted by april at 1:17 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack