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August 29, 2006
Cooking the First Dinner In a House I Own
Well, we own. MR and I. We bought a house, and we moved into it. It's wonderful... or at least it will be wonderful once a) the contractors are done with the rennovations and it's no longer a construction site b) I have time to unpack and it's no longer box mountain. The best part of it is that the kitchen is ORANGE! The kitchen matches my partner! It is amazing how the kitchen cabinets match his hair and the kitchen walls match his face. Good thing I like orange!
The last week has been really stressful, between crazy work and then closing on the house, packing, and moving. I'm still clearing our stuff out of the old house and cleaning, and MR has been dealing with contractors, cable internet installation people, and unpacking. There's been tons to write about... the recipes I made up to get rid of the food in the fridge before moving... our last dinner in our old house... the time the movers showed up and asked if we were brother ans sister. But I haven't had internet access and I've been too exhausted/stressed to write anyway.
The good news is: tonight I got to cook dinner in my own kitchen! After a very rough day of cleaning out the old house, I came home to find that MR had almost completely unpacked the new kitchen, and he put my favorite Hello Kitty tablecloth on the table! I didn't have much time to make dinner -- I was running late coming home and MR eats promptly at 6:30 pm -- but I knew I was up for it, and MR had done a few tasks that I had assigned to him to get things prepped. Then when I got home the internet guy said that he was still working on my computer. Uh-oh. You try making a perfectly Zoned, 639 calorie meal without nutritional software! I was a little concerned, but calmly said, "Okay, no problem" and proceeded, with a little help from MR's memory of calorie counts of common foods like eggwhites and zucchini, to construct the beginnings of a meal. Luckily, the internet guy showed up with the ok to use the computer, so I got to finish with the DWIDP. I made a vaguely Italian simple dish of zucchini, eggplant, eggwhites steamed in no salt veggie broth, plus a half cup of store bought lowfat marinara, seasoned with a ton of oregano and garlic. On the side I served apples microwaved with cinnamon, plus a teaspoon of flax oil on the apples and a teaspoon of olive oil on the main dish. Hazelnuts on the side to bring up the fat content. MR loved it, and I loved cooking in my beautiful new kitchen!
Re: MR's CR: MR is six feet tall, weighs 118, and eats 1900 a day. He was 145 pre-CR, eating all the pizza and oatmeal with whole milk and honey he could, so he's obviously very slight of build and a naturally skinny person. However, as with everyone who actually weighs and measures everything he eats, he reports a higher calorie intake than most people who do CR and yet don't measure say they're eating. That's cause people underestimate their calories! If you're not weighing and/or measuring (measuring cups are just as good for things like yogurt and cottage cheese) you don't know. I worry about newbies reading about unnaturally low calorie levels, and then trying to go that low themselves. Maybe because that's what I did, leading to too fast weight loss, some general woosiness (though a definite CR weight-loss euphoria that was a ton of fun) and getting sick on a train after drinking two Cosmos on a nearly empty stomach. My CR friends came after me to eat more, and they were right. In my opinion, most men should not dip below 2000, most women probably should not go much below 1500. BTW, MR also runs about twenty minutes every day and does resistance training three times a week. He is solid bone, muscle and brain. With a little bit of red hair.
He was slightly orange to begin with... the beta carotene in all his orange and green veggies just adds to it.
Re: eggwhites: there is an organic eggwhite called Eggology. I have had it once or twice and it's great! Expensive though. As to overpackaged... I get two cups of eggwhites per carton, and that seems to me to be no more packaged per gram than a carton of eggs. While folks disagree about saturated fat and its dangers, no one disagrees that yolks have a lot. I think it's a better use of calories to eat unsaturated fat in olive, flax and hazelnut oil (or nuts) and get protein without saturated fat in eggs.
Uh-oh, the chimney inspectors are here! Gotta go!
Posted by april at 7:54 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack
August 24, 2006
The Low-Fat Gospel
I forgot the book I meant to bring on this journey. I keep meaning to read Luke's favorite book, The Populist Moment. It's about a farmers' movement, and I know I should read it, but I've always found labor history deathly boring. I know that sounds terrible... I'm a union organizer... but it's one of those, "I do that all day, I don't want to read about it in my fifteen minutes of free time." Still, Luke is wonderful and he wants me to read this book. So I honestly meant to bring it with me. But I forgot it. It's sitting in my closet, where I hide paper objects from my paper-eating cat.
That meant that I have been trapped in Scranton for three days with nothing to read but an old diet book I borrowed from my father at Thanksgiving and left in the trunk. I'm not going to tell you the name of the diet book because I don't want to hurt its author's feelings when her google alarm goes off and she finds a blog entry slamming her work. In her defense, it's from the late nineties when people didn't know as much as we know now. There, I've said something nice. I'm done.
This book is total low-fat gospel crap. Base your diet on grains! Keep protein to 15% of total calories! Count fat grams, not calories!
Suggested breakfasts include: low-fat bran muffin, fortified cereal, and... my favorite... a bagel! With non-fat cream cheese. At least she got the non-fat cream cheese right. So you're ravenous two hours later cause your breakfast shot your blood sugar up to the sky and now you're crashing and it's only 9 am? Have a mid-morning snack: a banana! Still starving after dinner cause your entire day has been a blood sugar roller coaster? Have a bowl of nonfat frozen yogurt!
Oh dear oh dear oh dear. My friends, I actually lived this way for years. And let me tell you a few things about it:
a) I was never able to get my weight below 110, and usually hovered around 115 - 120 with considerable effort, constant stress about my fat intake, and lots of exercise (aerobic and weight lifting.) Now, I hover at 102 - 106 with almost no effort, and only get up to 108 when I spend a month celebrating in nice restaurants in Philadelphia.
b) I was a walking anxiety attack. I wouldn't have known calm if it bit me.
c) I was hungry all the time. So I ate all the time. Mid-morning? Banana, maybe some more rice! Lunch: big old plate of rice and beans, plus salad, plus fruit. Eat till my little tummy was stuffed. Two hours later: hunger. Solution? Eat more! You want to talk about food obsession? I thought about food as much as I now think about sex!
Here was my typical day as a low-fat devotee:
Breakfast:
bagel with mustard, tomato and onion (no butter, no cream cheese -- that has FAT!)
Mid-morning snack:
Banana, and a few scoops of my lunch beans and rice dish cause I'm so hungry I can't wait.
Lunch:
Giant dish of beans, brown rice, lots of spices and veggies (I was a good cook then too, btw, so my vegan dishes rocked.) Salad with fat free dressing (never mind that it was high sugar and high salt.) Another piece of fruit or a cooked fruit dish.
If I was on the run, my lunch would very likely be a foot long Subway veggie delight sub on wheat, no mayo, no oil, no olives, no cheese (NO FAT!)
Afternoon snack: ah, here's where the sugar craving hits. It has been my experience that going too low fat causes massive sugar cravings. So by afternoon I was raiding my candy jar for Jolly Ranchers, peppermints, Skittles, anything to calm the sugar freak-out.
Maybe a piece of fruit to go with my candy.
Dinner: Veggie sushi from the mall food court, or a big salad, fat free dressing, no meat, and a roll on the side.
After gym snack (9 or 10 pm): pint of grape tomatoes and a beer. No fat in beer.
I frequently felt shaky if I went too long without eating. I did lose weight eating this way, after my college weight gain, and I definitely felt better than I did when my senior year in college I ate an order of French fries every night at 10 pm (I am not making this up, ask my college roommate.) That's the thing these lowfat diets have going for them: they're better than the Standard American Diet of pizza, Big Macs and fries, the basic combination of high-sugar, high-carb, high saturated-fat and transfat, no vegetables. If you have been eating that way, you will both look better and feel better (and lose weight) if you switch to a low-fat diet.
But here's what I wish someone had told me: it's so much easier to lose a whole lot of weight, and keep it off, with very little effort! Eating a lot more protein, building a diet around vegetables and low-fat proteins instead of grains, and adding in the kinds of healthy fats that control hunger, kill sugar cravings, and make your skin gorgeous, is the way to lose more weight than you thought possible while enjoying life!
The book I was reading suggested that its readers accept that they will never be "skinny," and go through a grieving process for the body they want but can never have. I almost cried.
Please, please don't do this. I agree that most people will never achieve the body they really want if they eat bran muffins for breakfast and avoid protein. Like I said, I struggled to maintain a weight that now seems heavy to me. On a low-fat, high-carb, low-protein diet, lots of things are impossible.
But with adequate protein, all things are possible. [Or most. It won't clean your house or make your cat un-crazy, that I can tell you for sure.]
I just got an email from a friend of mine who battled her weight for years. The email includes a picture of her in shorts, looking great! She's been following the Zone, eating great food, and having a wonderful time. Weight loss is fun, not a miserable chore. And she's still losing! She says, "I wonder what I'll look like (and what I'll weigh) after 19 more months on this nutritious journey of deliciousness!!!"
I suggest that no one tell Mary Robinson to go through a grieving process for the body she can never have, because with the Zone and moderate CR, she's already got it. At 52. And she looks great! And her husband is so cute! (That's totally beside the point, I just think it's funny that a large percentage of CR'd women prefer skinny, geeky guys. Good thing, since it would be a real pain to live with a guy who ate gak.)
For too long, the American public has been faced with two choices: eat the Standard American Diet (and get diabetes, have a heart attack, find yourself unable to fit into an airplane seat, and forget ever wearing a bathing suit again) or go on a low-fat diet (and think about food all the time, eat tossed salads and plain baked potatoes in restaurants, exercise a lot and still forget about looking good in a bikini.) Those aren't the only choices! There is another way. And it's not that difficult. I've been low-fat, and I've done what I'm doing now, and what I do now is in fact easier.
Now I'm not an Atkins person. I have tremendous respect for the Atkins people because they did so much to bring public attention to the problem of sugar and refined carbs. They also brought us some really good sugar free syrup that we put on our low-carb whey protein pancakes. I'm all for the efforts of people like my friend Jimmy Moore to bring the low-carb toolbox to people battling with obesity. For people who find that Atkins works for them, I say go for it. For myself, I'm concerned about saturated fat and prefer to get most of my protein from sources that don't contain it, and to get my fat from unsaturated sources, keeping omega 3 and 6 balance in mind. I find that as long as my breakfast is almost all protein and fat and I get over 70 g protein a day, I can eat some non-grain carbs like fruits, tons of veggies (read: one or two pints of grape tomatoes per day on the weekends, plus salads) and drink wine without sending my body into a high-carb tailspin. I cook Zoned for MR, but I find myself eating much more like Ray Kurzweil (further proof that if I had been a bit older and his gorgeous wife hadn't gotten there first, I probably would have married Ray Kurzweil. Leave it to me to catch the geekiest genius boy of my generation. However, since I was born in 1974, I end up with MR, who definitely fits the brilliant geeky boy bill -- though he would be even more geeky if he would wear glasses, which he doesn't need but occasionally wears just to impress me.) Ray recommends higher protein, about 25% fat (almost all from unsaturated sources) and other wonderful things that you can read about in Fantastic Voyage. He also takes supplements out of little dishes that look like cat dishes, which I find adoreable. Between the high protein, the supplements, and the cat dishes, he'd fit right in at our house.
Point being, even if you don't find it part of your life's mission to capture the geekiest guy of your generation, you can still lose weight and have the body you want. Without suffering. You know what to do.
I am starting to feel like Samuel Jackson in Snakes on a Plane... "I am so sick of these motherf**&8 people who refuse to eat their motherf*&(^ eggwhites!" (Not you, Zeynep. You're absolved from eating eggwhites, as long as you keep eating other healthy foods. Or you, Mary, as you're allergic.) But really, how many times have I said it? You want to lose weight? Take a measuring cup. Measure out one cup of liquid eggwhites (you can buy these at the same store where you bought your gaky cereal that's making you a nutcase by 10 am.) Put them in a nonstick pan and scramble (if you want you can use spray, but don't use much, just a quick squirt.) Top with a teaspoon of flax oil (you go to the health food store anyway, just buy it and put it in the freezer.) Now you can add half-salt, fresh pepper, salsa, hot sauce, even Carolina Treet barbeque sauce (but not more than a tablespoon of Treet... too high carb in large amounts.) Eat. That wasn't so bad, was it? Do this for a week and you will start to feel more alert, less hungry, more energetic, and just plain saner all morning long. If you're a boy, you might want to eat 1.5 or 2 cups of eggwhites scrambled, since you're probably bigger than us little girls and have greater calorie requirements. MR's breakfast is around 600 calories, and I assure you, he's CR'd.
Losing weight, keeping it off, and being healthy doesn't have to be miserable. It can become almost effortless after awhile. (And don't whine that it's easy for me cause I'm only 32 because before CR, I was gaining weight fast and putting 140 pounds on my just under 5'2" frame. If you've got questions for people over 50, ask Mary.)
And please, please, eat your *&(*&#^(&! eggwhites!
Posted by april at 5:30 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack
August 23, 2006
Don't Leave Home Without It
Is there a word for that feeling that what you're about to do is a bad idea, just a twinge of intution that it will turn out to be a mistake? Not a feeling that what you're about do to is morally wrong, just a feeling that something that usually wouldn't matter will turn out to be a major fiasco? If there's not, there should be.
Yesterday at 6:30 am when I was leaving my hotel to drive up to my first nurse meeting of the day, I had a feeling that I should bring my megamuffin with me. My plan was to return to the hotel after the 7 am - 8:30 am session, get a quick workout in the hotel fitness room, grab my megamuffin from my room fridge, and then return for the 11 am to 8:30 pm series of meetings. So technically, I didn't need my muffin, as I was planning to eat it for lunch. But I had this feeling that I should go ahead and put it in my purse, just in case.
Well, I turned out to be right. I was leaving the first meeting to head back to the hotel when my brake light flipped on. Yup, the one that tells you your brakes are in bad shape. No wonder, as I've been driving in the Poconos every day for three weeks, and before that I was doing a ton of city driving in Philly for work. Of course, this can't happen when I'm at the office just a few blocks from my favorite mechanic. No, it happens when I'm all alone in a strange city. Great.
I asked for advice at the meeting hotel on a repair shop and got none. I finally just stopped at a gas station where a guy told me the name and location of a mechanic, so I started driving in that direction. Before I got there, I came across a car parts supplier. Hmmm, I thought. They'd know the location of a decent repair shop. So I asked, and they told me the location of a good place... about a block away! So I went there, they showed me that my front brakes were seriously worn down, and they fixed them for me... for a lot less than the price I'd pay in Philly. It turned out well in the end. I'm taking the car by today to have them take a quick look at the rear brakes, even though I just got them replaced in the winter. My car gets a lot of exercise.
The brake crisis killed my plans to go back to my hotel and work out, and it also prevented me from gathering my megamuffin and salad. Grrrr! I ended up having to go straight to my 11 - 1 session, which took place in a city park, with no lunch. As my lunch time came and went, I was getting very, very hungry. I had eaten a great breakfast: I took my very own, very best 1 cup measuring cup down to the free hot breakfast in the hotel and asked Mike, the omlette maker, to measure me a cup of eggwhites. He was very helpful and measured my eggwhites, removed the butter from the pan, and used non-stick spray instead. I added my own brewers yeast on top and even had my flax oil, measured out in my cute little pink teaspoon (that MR hates because it's the wrong shape, so he didn't mind if I took it to Scranton.) My breakfast was almost exactly what I would have at home, so it was delicious and filling, but I had eaten at 6 am so as to hit the road by 6:30, and by a little after 12 I was starving!
Luckily, I had thrown an Atkins protein bar into my purse for emergencies. I don't advocate making these a part of your quotidian diet: the protein is soy protein, which is problematic (search the CRS archives for "soy and dementia" to find out how excessive soy consumption may well make you act like my 18 year old cat.) The nutrients are basically supplements stirred into low carb fake food, but the point is, when you're very hungry, it's a safe, low-calorie way to get some protein and avoid a carb-induced blood sugar spike that will give me an anxiety attack and will make most anyone hungry about ten minutes later. Finding low carb packaged food for emergencies is much easier these days, thanks to the Atkins folks. The actual Atkins products tend to be very low calorie (this bar was 150) compared to a lot of "nutrition" bars that weigh in at between 200 and 260.
So I ate my emergency Atkins bar, drank a bottle of water, and eventually left that session at 1 with a short break before the next session. There's a Subway right next to the meeting hotel, so I stopped there for a Subway Club salad. Again, not perfectly optimal: the Subway Club has turkey meat, and while it's lean meat, I'd still rather avoid the saturated fat and cholesterol when possible. The whey and eggwhite protein of the megamuffin would have been preferable, but the Subway Club is quite respectable, very satisfying, and a mere 150 calories.
All in all, my lunch turned out to be 300 calories -- just about the same as it would have been had I eaten my planned megamuffin. Not bad, for a day when what could go wrong went wrong.
I had a short dinner break between evening meetings, so I went to the Ruby Tuesday's at the next exit and had a lovely salad of romaine, tomatoes, green and red bell peppers, lowfat cottage cheese, red onions, raw broccoli, green olives, chickpeas (just a few -- the calories on those add up fast!) and hot peppers, topped with Heinz salad vinegar.
I finished up my meetings at 8:30, drove back to the hotel (sitting in traffic for an extra fifteen minutes due to construction) and proceeded to discover a most interesting new food: the tomatosicle. Apparently, my fridge was set very cold, so the grape tomatoes that I had purchased the day before at the Allentown Farmers' Market had partially frozen. I will eat tomatoes in almost any form, and I didn't really mind the tomatosicle. The extra cold fridge did wonders for my Concord grapes, which were unbelievably sweet and tasty. I had a pleasant bedtime snack of a handfull of tomatoes, a few grapes, the piece of nonfat cheddar I had forgotten to put on my breakfast omlette, and a six ounce glass of Meridian cabernet, measured in baby travelling measuring cup. Then I took my melatonin and hopped in the shower to try to unwind before bed... I still have time unwinding after late night meetings and driving. When I got out of the shower, I was all melatonin-sleepy and ready to crash, but unfortunately, the person in the room next door was blasting his television.
Now, I really don't like TV. I find the noise almost unbearably annoying. In general, I don't like background noise, unless it is the calming waterfall of my little tablefountain. I am either listening to something (radio, a CD, whatever) or I am not. If I'm not, I don't want the noise. And I especially hate TV noise if I need to sleep.
I only stewed for a few minutes before picking up the phone and calling the room next door. In my sweetest southern voice, I asked the gentleman if he could possibly turn down his TV just a touch. He graciously complied, and I thanked him profusely, also in my sweetest southern voice. I had to be up again at 5 this morning, so I didn't have time to mess around with my sleep.
This morning I was up again at 5, did my meditation out on my little hotel balcony facing the rising sun (the ducks in the stream outside seem to think I'm going to feed them when I come out early in the morning. Must be something about my arm motions, cause they all come quacking. Some might find this distracting, but I think it's rather cute. Reminds me of how my mother used to adopt geese when she lived on a lake. She'd feed them cat food, and they clearly thought she was their mommy. I pointed out that this makes her a Mother Goose.)
Then off to the free breakfast and my 1 cup eggwhite omlette, measured in my trusty measuring cup, this time with the full complement of non-fat cheddar slice, teaspoon flax oil, tablespoon brewers yeast. And off to work...
I'm at the meetings now but it's the part between shifts so no one is here yet. I'm hoping to catch a workout between sessions today... the workout room is so nice that it's a shame not to take advantage of it, and I think that working out will help prevent the joint pain and muscle stiffness that doing so much driving seems to cause. I also find exercise such a good stress reduction method that in these times of repetitive stress, both mental and physical, I really must incorporate it into my daily routine, even when on the road.
And yes, this time, I put my megamuffin in my purse before leaving the hotel at 6:30. Don't leave home without it.
Posted by april at 7:29 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 22, 2006
16 Is the Age of Waffle
For days I've been meeting with nurses in a hotel in Scranton where they have a free breakfast bar. I don't stay in the hotel, I just meet nurses there. The free breakfast bar includes Belgian waffles that you can make yourself in the waffle makers on the buffet. They're accompanied by a sign that says, "You must be 16 or older to operate the waffle maker. Children under 16 must be accompanied by an adult."
I've always found age cut-offs problematic, but this one is particularly perplexing. 16 to make a waffle? I really think I could have handled the waffle machine at 10, but I was a very mature child, so let's say 12. If it were for liability reasons, you'd think you'd have to be a legal adult of age 18, able to vote and fight and die in wars, in order to make a waffle at this hotel. I can understand the nightclub's slogan, "18 to party, 21 to drink," but "16 to waffle?" It's just bizarre.
I remember hearing (in a Christopher Durang play, admittedly not a reliable source) that Catholics defined age 7 as the "Age of Reason." I was pretty reasonable at 7 (ask my parents) but I don't consider most 7 year olds that capable of making their own decisions on important matters. 7 year olds are notoriously short, and therefore probably couldn't handle a waffle maker on a high counter, but that's a height thing, not an age thing. It just goes to show how unreasonable age minimums can be, even when they're about reason.
I can even understand if the waffle machine had a height minimum, like rollercoasters. If you can't safely *reach* the waffle iron, you can't make your waffle. But age 16?
It's ironic, also, that children in this hotel are protected from the nutrition-less carbs in Belgian waffles by an arbitrary age limit. Of course, they have unlimited access to the muffins, danishes, bagels, English muffins, and sugar-filled cereals.
That reminds me... the other day, I saw an obese woman in Starbucks buying her already overweight young son, maybe about seven years old, a giant chocolate muffin. For breakfast. I almost cried. I was so distraught that I accidentally swept my car key into the trash along with a stray dirty napkin. I had to ask the Starbucks guy if I could go through the trash. He said that he had to do it for me (liability reasons again, I'm guessing) so the poor fellow went through the trash and found my key. I may drop off a nice bottle of wine to the Starbucks for Steve, my trash-picking Starbucks rescuer. If it weren't for him, I'd still be sitting at the Chestnut Hill Starbucks reflecting on how I just *knew* something bad was going to happen to me for forgetting my travel mug and using a paper cup! He moves, it has been said, in mysterious ways. Keep an eye on your car key.
Posted by april at 7:56 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
August 20, 2006
Vaguely Lasagna-ish, Slightly Cruciferous, Highly Nutritious, Extremely Delicious, Summer Vegetable Layer Cake-Like Lunch
Today for lunch I layered chopped cauliflower, asparagus, fat free cottage cheese mixed with garlic powder and oregano, fresh tomatoes from Christine's garden, and shiitake mushrooms in a large glass dish. Baked at 250 for about half an hour and then left sitting to steam with the oven off for another hour or so. Topped with a teaspoon and a half of olive oil after removing from the oven. MR loved it. He loves the lasagna-ish, even when it's not very ish.
We ate a ton of blueberries this weekend: MR had his in strawberry/blueberry/nonfat ricotta/hazelnut or flax oil/hazelnut and Walden Farms chocolate sauce parfaits. I had mine either plain or with a teaspoon of flax oil.
Tonight's dinner was Quorn dogs rolled in low carb tortillas with fat free singles, and our new favorite mustard, Boars' Head, on the side. I made MR a side dish of yellow organic pear tomatoes steamed with fresh okra and garlic, while I ate a side dish of plain okra. He had a strawberry/blueberry etc. parfait for dessert, I had blueberries with flax oil. Another successful weekend cooking extravaganza. I so miss cooking during the week... cooking is my big stress-reliever and outlet for my creativity. These days I don't even get to eat at home during the week, much less cook.
I head to Scranton for four days tomorrow. Gone Monday - Thursday. I'm packing flax oil, nonfat cheese, green tea, brewers yeast, savory megamuffins, and anything else I might need to sustain my body during the long stay. I'll be meeting with nurses from 7 am till 8:30 pm every day, so I won't have much time to eat, therefore it's essential that I pack things that are easy to store, pop out and eat quick. At least the place where I stay will provide me with a fridge. The other great thing about the place where I stay is that they have a free hot breakfast, complete with omlettes made to order, and they'll make an eggwhite omlette! I plan to throw my own flax oil and nonfat cheese plus brewers yeast over my eggwhite omlette to create a reasonable facsimile of my at home breakfast on the road!
Posted by april at 8:26 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
People for the Ethical Treatment of Cucumbers
Luke told me the cutest story last week. Apparently, when he was a kid, like ten years old, his parents sent him to one of those traditional summer camps where they go canoeing, sleep in cabins with bunk beds, and attempt to show the city kids a country way of life. The big excitement was that on Saturdays, the kids were allowed to go to the fruit and vegetable stand down the road and purchase the fruit or vegetable of their choice with the dollar or two their parents would provide. All the kids would buy peaches, plums, or berries. But Luke, invariably, purchased a cucumber, and ate it, with a dash of salt (they had a salt shaker right there for just this purpose) at the stand. His fellow children thought he was really, really weird. They were right of course.
On Thursday I brought him a gift of some Kirby pickles from the Allentown Farmers' Market. We sat in his office eating them whole out of the bag. After VLC quit, I had been afraid that I would never find a fellow organizer who loves vegetables the way I do. My fears have now been put to rest. A man who eats cucumbers out of the bag, whole, as a snack, is worthy of the office next door to me.
Posted by april at 4:39 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 19, 2006
Squeamed
During dinner tonight, MR mentioned that he's like to try some of the fabulous orangy crookneck summer squash (I suppose the Canadians would call this yellow zucchini) just steamed as a side dish. Later, when confirming his preference, I accidentally said, "So you'd like some squeamed squash?" He squirmed a bit, as though he was feeling squeamish. "Squeam as a squide dish?" I asked. He was getting downright squirrely when we decided that squeam was actually an appropriate term for steamed squash on the side.
Tonight's dinner, thrown together in about half an hour, was a light summer stew of summer squash, squeamed with those giagantic okra, plus one of Christine's extra-juicy garden-fresh tomatoes, all mixed in no-salt organic veggie broth and seasoned with garlic, half-salt, oregano and paprika. Eggwhites cooked and mixed into the stew in chunks provided the nonfat protein, and a teaspoon of olive oil (added after removing from heat) topped off the dish. Dessert was a bowl of amazingly sweet yet simultaneously tart Farmers' Market blackberries, topped with a teaspoon of flax oil. MR had a large side of hazelnuts, which he mixed into dessert. Yum!
Oh how I love the Farmers' Market. It provides never-ending inspiration. Three Cheers for the Farmers' Market!
Posted by april at 5:26 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 18, 2006
Fun And Healthy Facts About Pennsylvania Vegetables
I was driving back from Scranton yesterday morning, and as is my custom, I stopped at the Allentown Farmers' Market, which is located at the Allentown PA Turnpike stop, to pick up some fresh local fruits and veggies. While I was there, a little yellow pamphlet with the title quoted in today's headline caught my eye. It's published by the Pennsylvania Vegetable Marketing and Research Program, and it's just fabulous!!! Included in the pamphlet is tons of easy to read and understand info about fruits and vegetables, including pictures of veggies by categories (seeds, roots, stems, seed pods, flower buds, and veggies that are actually fruits! Did you know that an eggplant is technically a fruit? I did not know! Therefore by seed and root and stem and bud and leaf and flower and fruit do we invoke Thee!)
Instructions on eating 3-5 vegetables per day with examples are given, and they even break down the veggies, suggesting that you eat one veggie high in Vitamin A (broccoli, cantaloupe, carrot, lettuce, peppers, spinach, winter squash), one high in C (asparagus, snap beans, lima beans, broccoli, brussels sprouts, lettuce, peas, peppers, tomatoes, etc.), and one high in fiber (beans, broccoli, brussels, cauliflower, etc.) Can you believe this awesome pamphlet? It even talks about how many acres of PA land are devoted to growing fruits and vegetables, broken down by vegetable!
I am totally blown away by the brillance of this pamphlet. It makes me proud to be a Pennsylvanian. It's cute, easy to read, educational, not preachy at all and it's pictures of veggies are just adoreable! It's really encouraging to be at a turnpike stop, a haven of junk food packed with Roy Rogers, Nathan's Hot Dogs, Pizza Hut, and Hershey's Ice Cream, and then to step outside to the Farmers' Market, and oasis of beautiful, healthy, incredibly fresh and delicious produce, and then find this delightful pamphlet. I have been carrying the thing around and showing it to everyone I know.
Meanwhile, I went crazy at the Farmers' Market, stocking up on sweet blackberries, yummy blueberries, unusually orangy crookneck squash, juicy plums, Kriby pickles (which are actually cucumbers) and these gargantuan okra that caused MR to exclaim "Holy *&*(" when he took them out of their produce bag. Needless to say, weekend cooking will be all about fresh veggies and fruits from the PA Farmers' Market. Recipes to follow!
Posted by april at 8:00 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
August 17, 2006
The Look Great, Feel Great Diet
WARNING: This is probably nothing you don't already know.
[Wow, that was a painful double negative. There is no part of this entry that is not old information.]
The past few weeks, as I've mentioned, have been rough on my CR, and I'm amazed at how much better I look and feel when I'm in my CR groove. Cleary, a weight gain of five pounds, from 103 to 108, is not going to make me look like a beached whale. It's not that I look fat, it's that I look tired, downtrodden, and generally older... in just a few weeks! Just as I miraculously got younger when I started CR, I unfortunately get older as I eat junk. The good news is: this is easily reversable! Here's my thoughts on the look great/feel great diet and lifestyle.
-- Eat an low carb, high protein breakfast with a teaspoon of flax oil. You got it... the religion of eggwhites. You knew that was coming. See, you already know this stuff. I'm just putting it all together.
-- Eat lots of dark leafy green veggies, and a big variety of them. Dress them with olive or flax oil or eat them with pumpkin seeds or hazelnuts/almonds. Fat aids the absorption of their nutrients.
-- Eat lots of tomatoes, both raw and cooked. Just don't eat *my* tomatoes, because I growl at anyone who comes near *my* tomatoes.
-- Eat nonfat dairy in measured portions.
-- Dramatically cut back on salt. This mostly means eliminating processed foods from your diet. Want to look great fast? Completely cut out salt for two days, plus the next step.
-- Drink lots of water. MR thinks I drink too much water, but I find that I am more energetic, less hungry, less moody, and much better looking when I drink a lot of water.
-- Eat some fruit, but make it the high nutrient fruit like citrus or berries. And not too much... the calories add up, and for those of us who are very carb-sensitive, so do the carbs.
-- Don't drink much, and only drink red wine. Nothing makes me look like crap faster than overindulging in alcohol, especially vodka drinks like cosmos. Nothing worse than the combination of vodka and sugar.
-- Don't eat anything with added sugar at all. I think sugar makes my face look pinched, and not in a cute way like a Persian cat. In a "Rescue me from myself!" type of way.
Now on to the non-diet aspects:
-- Sleep. I know, it's hard, but you have to get enough sleep. How much is enough? Don't know. When you don't feel tired during the day, most likely.
-- Get some exercise. I am amazed at how good I look when I step off the treadmill, even if I only worked out for twenty minutes. And how great I feel when I'm lifting, even when I'm lifting tiny amounts.
-- Have sex. Do you ever notice how much better people look when they've just had sex? Try this experiment: look at yourself in the mirror. Go have sex with someone (preferably someone you like, but whatever.) Now look in the mirror again. Don't you look better? Your face is glowing, your eyes are bright, your hair should look less tense. See, it works.
-- Do some kind of concentrating on yourself activity that doesn't involve food or shopping. Like, meditate, swing on the swingset, read, take a long walk, chat on the phone with friends, write. Just don't eat or buy stuff. Every day, take some time to yourself, even if it's fifteen minutes. It's worth it. I find that when I don't do this, it's my immediate ticket to lifestyle free-fall. Even if you just sit and stare out the window for fifteen minutes, it's a break.
Try this for a week, and I promise you will look better. And so will whomever you choose to have sex with, even if he or she refused to eat vegetables. Though why you would have sex with anyone who won't eat vegetables is beyond me.
Posted by april at 5:28 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
August 16, 2006
Resisting Temptation
One of my favorite commenters, Carmela, poses this question:
Question:
How do you and MR resist the temptations of, (for example) freshly baked brownies or hot chocolate molten cake? I have to have at least one. I also think to myself...How or what would April do?
I usually just take a small bite or small portion to stop the craving.
Carmela
Here is the answer: MR and I deal very differently with such things. I will outline our opposite styles.
MR doesn't get anywhere near temptation. He doesn't eat out, he weighs and measures each bite, and he eats real chocolate precisely twice a year, on his CR birthday and his regular birthday, in small measured portions, dark organic chocolate, with slightly melted and drizzled with hazelnut oil. He lives an unusual existence, but he really likes it that way. He wasn't much for eating out before CR, and enjoys routine, consistency, etc. He's very happy with his CR style... especially now that I am cooking for him on the weekends!
I, on the other hand, am always battling temptations. I'm not going to say that I'm at peace with my methods of handling these things, but I do pretty well.
For instance, I rarely crave sweets, but when I get a huge PMS-induced chocolate craving, which happens about four times a year, I just go ahead and eat some chocolate. And you know what? The world doesn't end! I usually feel a little sick after a few handfulls of M&M's, but I don't automatically turn 80.
When I go out with friends for nice dinners, I often spilt a dessert several ways. That way I get to enjoy both food and fellowship without eating too, too much. I do find, though, that on these occasions I frequently eat more than I need to, which makes me feel crappy afterwards. I get irratible and find it hard to sleep on an over-full stomach. However, if I pace myself right and just have a small amount of things I really, really want, I feel fine. The next day I return to my quotidian diet.
I just wrote an entire entry and then something weird happened to my computer and I lost the whole thing. How frustrating.
The moral of the story is: the best way to resist temptation is to a) avoid it b) decide in advance what you will and will not do. If I am going out to eat, I read the online menu and decide what I am going to eat. Then I eat nothing else. The times when I mess up are the times when I go into an occasion unprepared, either because I'm very hungry and faced with a whole lot of bad choices, or because I allow stress to overrule my better judgement. It's easier when I don't leave it up to chance and plan out my eating day before I'm ever faced with a decision.
In the end, it all comes down to priorities. CR is so individual... you have to find what works for you. The lower you try to go, the harder it gets to pack all the essential nutrients into your calories without going over. If you're content with a moderate level of CR, the occasional brownie isn't a big deal, as long as it doesn't throw off your entire day (or week, or month!) If you're going lower, or just starting out, it's probably best to avoid nutrient-free foods all together, since they both add calories and deprive you of the nurition you need to feel satisfied.
It also helps to develop a quotidian diet that you love, that's low calorie and nutritious and easy to make and carry around. Eggwhites, megamuffins, brewers yeast soup, and MR-made salads are staples of my existence. So is the Ruby Tuesday's salad bar with its huge selection of fresh veggies, fruits, and lowfat cottage cheese. Subway has also been my friend when I'm on the road. When you have healthy, low cal alternatives to turn to, you're more able to resist the high calorie, low nutrition foods.
I am by no means perfect... the last few weeks have been very hard for my CR, and the scale hovered at 108 for some uncomfortable days. It's back down to 106, I'm chowing back on my healthy foods, and the month of celebratory dinners seems to be over (at last!) It's always hard to balance the demands of work, social life, and CR, but I find that I feel so much better when I'm in my CR groove that I have more energy to take on all the tasks when I have fewer calories in my tummy.
Speaking of: today's food, on the road and off:
breakfast:
quotidian eggwhites scrambled with nonfat cheddar and flax oil
lunch:
MR-packed salad with pumpkin seeds (couldn't find a protein source... am thinking of packing whey powder when I travel to avoid the saturated fat in the chicken and turkey I've eaten so much on the road lately. It's always easy to find nonfat milk to mix it with.)
dinner:
Ruby Tuesday's salad bar with heaping helping of lettuce, tomatoes, green peppers, broccoli, red onion, pickles, hot peppers, cottage cheese, and chickpeas for garnish. Olives for fat and vinegar for seasoning.
Tonight when I get back to my hotel I'll no doubt enjoy a glass of cabernet in the bar before turning in. They give you a ticket for one free drink with every reservation... nice eh? They think that by luring you into the bar they can get you to buy more drinks, but I always use the one ticket and then go to bed.
Then tomorrow night I have meetings till after 9 pm in Philly... another 12+ hour day... two hour drive back to the office in the morning, meetings starting at 9 am, getting home about 9:30 pm. This job is hard, and requires a level of endurance that I don't think I'd have if it weren't for CR. It's a good thing I discovered CR just as I was exiting my 20's... I need all the youthful energy I can get!
Posted by april at 8:15 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
August 15, 2006
Uma Thurman Eating A Muffin
I was reading a copy of Vogue in the nail salon the other day, and noticed that an interview with Uma Thurman began with the reporter saying something like, "The supernaturally gorgeous actress was eating one of those giant muffins that you wouldn't expect she'd touch with a ten foot pole." I paraphrase, I assure you, but you get the idea.
Here's something that perplexes me. Often I read interviews with or descriptions of extremely thin movie stars or supermodels, and the interviewer gleefully describes how the star eats all she wants, usually to include things like hamburgers, fries, and French pastries, and stays thinner than most of us female CR Society members. The stars talk about how they don't worry about what they eat, they're just naturally that way. Like we're supposed to be impressed with that or something. Haha! This model/actress/singer/superstar is defying the laws of thermodynamics by eating a ton of calories, in the form of gak, and staying thin! Yippie! Good for her!
No way. I am not happy for supermodels who eat tons of gak and stay thin. In fact, I feel sad for them, because in their profession staying young-looking is extremely important, and their poor nutrition will start to show in visible signs of aging. I feel much more excited for women like me, or Little MR, or many of my CR sisters who tend to put on weight when we eat like that, but who become slim but not skinny when on pretty significant CR. We're the lucky ones. We are slowing our biological aging processes, and looking better at the same time! Not to mention that we will look better longer.
I also think it's representative of American's poor attitude towards food in general when the virtues of eating gak and staying thin are extolled on the pages of our fashion magazines. Being thin and gorgeous is a great thing, to be sure, but so is health, and as it turns out, it is much *easier* for us normal people to become thin and gorgeous by eating healthy foods! Low calorie vegetables, fruits (in moderation), lean protein like turkey, eggwhites, non-fat dairy, healthy fats like flax and olive oil... all healthy, yummy foods that can make you beautiful if you just give them a chance. The contrast between health and beauty strikes me as just as silly at attempting to contrast health and longevity. Being healthy makes you live long... and it makes you look better. What's not to love?
Take, by way of contrast, a Canadian women's magazine, Chatelaine, that started mysteriously arriving at my house a few months ago. This month's issue featured multi-page stories on several different fruits and vegetables, including almost pornographic pictures of the veggies displayed in alluring poses. Tomatoes, eggplant, and blueberries all got full-length articles, including nutritional information, instructions for proper selection and care, and recipes. I was so excited that I showed the veggie centerfold to MR. (The couple that looks at food porn together most certainly has a spicy relationship.) Message in this magazine is: vegetables are sexy! Fruits are a turn-on! Here's some practical information about how you can incorporate these wonderful items into your life. Yum!
We all know about how media images work on our brains, convincing us (perhaps against our will) that we need mascara, or to be thin, or to try one of those tricks detailed in the Cosmo Kama Sutra that are really only possible if you're a gymnast, advanced yoga practitioner, or invertebrate. I've found that these hot images of cool produce have worked so well on my subconscious that I've been craving blueberries ever since I read the last issue of Chatelaine! I'm glad I put this together, since MR and I have both been puzzled by my recent and unusual blueberry cravings. There's nothing odd about me consuming a pint of grape tomatoes at one sitting (or one standing in front of the fridge or in the market) but I've never been a serious fruit person, so we couldn't figure out why I was suddenly buying and eating blueberries. I thought maybe I was having subconscious yearnings for flavenoids, to combat the circles under my eyes that my work schedule and one too many glasses of wine with Luke after a long day of meeting with nurses can cause. Or maybe my taste of blueberries from the Allentown Farmers' Market had created a last impression. But that's not it: the timing doesn't work out. It's the magazine! I read the article about blueberries, complete with gorgeous pictures, and now I want blueberries all the time!
Isn't that a lot better than craving Uma Thurman's muffin, which, if I ate, would make me look a lot more like the average American overweight, unhappy woman, than like Uma? I'll never be as tall as Uma Thurman (nor would I want to be -- too much competition for high up shelf space in the kitchen) but I can have the body I love and the health that allows me to enjoy it by eating foods like the ones featured in Chatelaine.
I wonder if we could get them to do an article about flax oil... sexy pictures of flax oil dripping languidly off the teaspoon... flax oil in a glass dish glistening atop a fresh fruit salad of blueberries and raspberries... flax oil sassily topping a CR-friendly Zoned gourmet low carb pizza... instructions on how you can spice up your sex life AND balance your omega 3's and 6's by rubbing flax oil all over... well, you get the idea.
Posted by april at 5:53 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
August 13, 2006
Ricotta Tatta, and Other Foods That Rhyme
Weekend cooking at last! After a week away on the campaign trail, I finally got to make some food for my orange angel. Today's lunch: blueberry ricotta fritatta! I mixed a ton of blueberries, fresh from Whole Foods, into eggwhites and a fourth cup of nonfat yogurt and added a dash of vanilla extract and a drip of sucralose. Then I baked for two hours at 250 and served topped with a fourth cup of fat free ricotta and about 150 grams of strawberries, cut into quarters, topped with one teaspoon of flax oil (added after removing from heat, cause oxidized oils are carcinogenic.) Side dish was a beautiful tomato fresh from our neighbor's garden topped with extra virgin olive oil, surrounded by lightly steamed cauliflower florets, also topped with olive oil, to which I added just a drop of various hot sauces we had kicking about the fridge. It made a pretty sunshine platter. MR added some no-cal Walden Farms syrup to the tatta to amplify the French toast/blueberry pancakes feel, and it was delicious! Gave me some ideas for next weekend's cooking.
Tonight for dinner I made a Quorn stir-fry with organic red pepper and next door neighbor tomato, plus garlic, no salt organic veggie broth, eggwhites and fresh ground pepper. Dessert was a strawberry ricotta parfait with hazelnuts, hazelnut oil and nonfat ricotta, plus a teaspoon of Walden Farms chocolate sauce. Another success!
On the road again tomorrow to Scranton, after a day of meetings at the local office. It never ends, but I love my work and my nurses so much that I don't mind. As long as I can spend some time at home with my Orange One and my kitties, cooking CR-friendly delicious creations and being in love, I'm fine. Off and away!
Posted by april at 9:45 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
August 11, 2006
Fluency
"I never would have thought of putting cumin and paprika into cauliflower," said MR, as he sat down and began to enjoy his salad of kale topped with cauliflower, which had been marinated in tarragon white wine vinegar with cumin and paprika and steamed for two minutes in the microwave, then topped with a teaspoon of olive oil and fresh ground pepper. To the salad I added a dish of eggwhites scrambled with tomatoes, green peppers, avocado, salsa and kale stems chopped finely, and nonfat cheddar along with two tablespoons of a black bean salsa I picked up at the local gourmet shop last weekend, topped with a teaspoon flax oil. Dessert was a CR'd chocolate crepe: low carb tortilla filled with nonfat ricotta and Walden Farms chocolate sauce, folded over and lightly cooked. The meal was high volume, low calorie, high nutrient content, and delicious. I put it together in about half an hour.
When I first started cooking for MR... using DWIDP to put together perfectly Zoned dinners of exactly precisely 639 calories, it was hard. I remember the first time I tried to cook for him: February of 05, the first night when Aubrey de Grey, his new boss and world famous theoretical biogerontologist, was staying with us in Calgary. MR and I were new lovers, MR and Aubrey were new co-workers, and I was new to Zoned exactly precisely measured cooking. I nearly tore my hair out cooking that first meal of scallops in white wine with tomatoes and cilantro. Then I learned how to use the software, not just to compute my daily nutrional needs, but to make each individual meal come out perfect. A few more eggwhites here... a few hazelnuts there to make up for some fat... a couple more blueberries can fit into that recipe, but no more tomato sauce... practice made perfect. It was hard at times when I was learning, but now it's easy, and it's fun.
Over the last few days when I've been meeting with RNs again after many months organizing non-RN health care professionals, I was reminded of how fluency feels. I know RN issues so well, the language that nurses speak to each other, the stress they are under and the challenges they stand up to every day. Organizing RNs again is like hanging out with a bunch of old friends. They're all new names and new faces, but they're so familiar that it's like I've known them all along. Luke barely got a word in edgewise, as I was so busy chatting with the nurses like I had known them all my life.
When I was in high school, I learned to speak French. I had taken French classes since seventh grade, but it wasn't until I had a close friend who had spent a year in France that I truly learned to speak French. We would chatter together (mostly about boys) in our secret language. My French improved. Later on, my best friend was a beautiful redheaded girl named Kathleen whose family was from Montreal. She spoke French with a gorgeous French-Canadian accent, and I started talking like I was a teenager from Montreal. I lost most of my French when I grew up and stopped practicing, but I'm sure that if I were to spend the day hanging out in cafes in Montreal, it would come back. Fluency is like that. It's hard to win, but you never really lose it.
It took about a year of intense study and practice to learn fluency with the concepts of good nutrition, CR-friendly cooking, and to learn what makes my body and mind feel best. Just like my first few years of nurse organizing when I was learning the language through many rough meetings of two or three nurses at once who asked me questions I couldn't answer, my first year of CR was both exhilariating and frustrating. Now it's easier. The struggles are different: keeping to my CR when life stresses me out, keeping my calories low when it seems like every night is a celebratory dinner out, paying attention to my calorie intake when my constipated cat is worrying me. But I can always return to my well-researched, nutritionally balanced, calorie-counted quotidian diet, and forget about it! And I can make beautiful, delicious CR meals, any calorie level you like, with very little effort. I'm fluent in CR now. It's kinda fun.
Posted by april at 8:33 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
August 10, 2006
Road Food, Cat Update, Home for a Few Days
Well, I'm home now until Monday. Meetings up in Scranton went extremely well, which means that I'll be spending a whole lot of time up there. Next week most likely I'll be there Monday and Wednesday, though I have to pop back to Philly for a Tuesday night meeting.
Meanwhile, Kieffer just got home today from THREE NIGHTS in the kitty hospital! He had such terrible constipation that the vets think there may be something else wrong. Don't know what... all the blood work comes back fine. These problems always start from stress for him, so I am thinking of taking him to a kitty yoga class. I hear there really is cat accupuncture. He needs to meditate. How can you get a cat to meditate??? At least he's home and happy now. His grandmother picked him up this afternoon since I was still in Scranton, and he bounded out of the carrier, devoured a can of cat food, and hung out enjoying all his normal perches all afternoon till I got home at 7. Now he's lying on the floor in happy cat position: belly up, paws in the air, eyes blissfully closed. This is a cat who is happy to be home. You would too, if you'd had as many enemas as he has over the last few days. Is there some way I can put the cat on my health insurance? Maybe I could marry him! He already goes by Kieffer Smith.
Road food wasn't bad at all: eggwhite omlettes with mushroom, tomato, onion and bell pepper and salsa for late breakfast both days, then I introduced Luke to Ruby Tuesday's last night for dinner. I had the salad, he had a salad plus a shrimp dish. All was well.
I'm exhausted, and tomorrow I'm technically taking off from work to work on the packing, though of course I'll end up working half the time anyhow. It was so nice to come home to MR and my fresh MR-made salad. I had the salad with a half cup of cottage cheese, a teaspoon of flax oil, and two teaspoons of Carolina Treet barbacue sauce. Yum!
Posted by april at 8:32 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
August 9, 2006
On the Road Again
I'm on the road again, up in Scranton, so I don't have much time to write... just wanted to let you know that I had a great eggwhite omlette this morning: mushrooms, tomatoes, peppers and onions with eggwhites, ripe tomato slices on the side, and they were very happpy to use a nonstick pan and add no butter or oil for cooking. Can't let me go around oxidizing.
There's an RT up here so I will probably hit that for dinner, and I have my MR-packed salad that I can eat for lunch, perhaps with a Subway turkey wrap.
More soon...
Posted by april at 10:25 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
August 6, 2006
When On Sale Cauliflower Happens To Good People
"Don't buy anymore cauliflower!" exclaimed MR when I got home with another two heads of organic cauliflower. We already had, unbeknownst to me, a whole lot of cauliflower in the fridge. "But they were on sale!" exclaimed I, and pointed out that they were 2 for $5. And so cute!!! Who can resist a head of on-sale cauliflower?
Well, let's just say that I had to use up some cauliflower fast. And in Iron Chef fashion, I did. For lunch I made a chilled cream of cauliflower soup with fresh basil. Here's how I did it:
500 g raw cauliflower
1/2 cube no salt vegan veggie broth (Rapunzel brand)
1 cup nonfat plain yogurt
handfull of fresh basil
garlic
garlic powder
organic unsweetened lemon juice
half salt
140 g eggwhites (liquid, raw)
1 teaspoon olive or flax oil
juice of organic lemons
Make broth out of the cube with about half a cup of water. Dice the cauliflower and steam it in the broth. Blend in the food processor along with the yogurt and basil, add garlic. Add eggwhites and blend. Remove from blender and add salt and lemon juice to taste. Refrigerate until ready to serve. Add 1 teaspoon of olive oil when serving. Feel free to add fresh ground pepper.
Then tonight I made steamed cauliflower in white wine with Quorn tenders, sungold tomatoes and a dessert of Trader Joe's organic raspberries (frozen and thawed into a wonderful sauce) over fat free ricotta with Walden Farms chocolate sauce and hazelnuts, plus flax oil. Yum! MR loves these nonfat ricotta parfaits. You should all try them. They're a great low cal source of calcium, and so versatile! They can go from entree to dessert in the time it takes you to clear the table.
There's still a lot of cauliflower in the fridge, so I am about to embark on a project to finish it off, making tomorrow night's dinner before I go to bed tonight. Cauliflower multitasking!
Posted by april at 8:48 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 5, 2006
Surprise Parties, Constipated Cats, and a Rough Week for CR
Well, it's been quite a week. Between two birthday dinners, a birthday lunch, and a birthday surprise party with carrot cake that was (by definition) a surprise, I had a lot of challenges to my CR. Add to that that Kieffer, who so perceptively picks up on his Mommy's stress, started getting constipated towards the end of my organizing campaign, and the situation just got worse till I finally had to take him to the vet. Usually he clears these things himself, but not this time. I'll spare you the details, but Kieffer had a very rough day yesterday. MR was a wonderful kitty step-father, including picking up Kieffer from the vet so that I didn't have to cancel my evening plans. Kieffer proceeded to hide under the couch for twenty-four hours and only recently emerged. I've been angsting about him all day, and his grandmother came over to give him kitty massage. He seems to be doing better now, but he has to go back to the vet Monday. Poor baby!!! Nothing worse than a giant constipated cat.
Meanwhile, I got an unexpected treat tonight when the event that MR was planning to go to was cancelled (unfortunately, he only found this out after driving an hour there in traffic with absurd detours to discover that no one was there!) so he came home for dinner! In about half an hour I threw together a fabulous dinner: the ricotta stuffed peppers I blogged about a few days ago, a side dish cooked in the same Corningware dish in the same dry white wine of eggwhites and eggplant seasoned with magic mushroom seasoning, garlic and tarragon vinegar topped with a teaspoon of olive oil, and a dessert parfait of fat free ricotta topped with Trader Joe's frozen organic blackberries cooked with cinnamon and topped with a teaspoon of hazelnut oil and 10 g hazelnuts, plus a teaspoon of Walden Farms chocolate sauce in the mix. MR stirred the remainder of his megamuffin from breakfast into the parfait for a biscotti-like effect. I love cooking for my angel, and it was an extremely happy surprise to have him home.
Now Kieffer is out and about so I'd better give him a substantial cuddle before we're off to bed... you'll all be glad to hear that Philomena, the eighteen year old calico, is doing great, with lab work that indicates that her thyroid condition is under control and her kidney disease has receeded to almost nothing. I do love my cats...
Posted by april at 8:35 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 2, 2006
The Hottest Day of the Year
Is my birthday. So I am taking the day off from work and taking my cat to the vet. Then in the afternoon I'm going out with VLC for a late lunch, then MR is making me my favorite dinner, CR-pizza.
I definitely feel better at 32 than I did at 22. This stuff works.
Posted by april at 6:19 AM | Comments (14) | TrackBack