April's CR Diary

« Commitment | Main | Snark Attack »

February 19, 2007

You Will Live a Long and Healthy Life

Sorry for the delay in writing... I have not had even a minute to sit down! CNN went fine. Sanjay and his producer were stuck in traffic on their way here from NY for 4.5 hours, so they were a bit late. Meanwhile, we hung out with their cameraman, who is a very nice guy, and I had lots of time to play with the food. I used our new white square fancy modern looking dishes that MR's parents gave us for Christmas. On them I lined up the tri-color tomato salad with basil and olive oil in one long line, followed by the fish, followed by the lightly steamed stalks of asparagus. The dessert (you guessed it, MoMR!) was MegaBrownie chopped up and served as a sundae in layers with nonfat ricotta, frozen (obviously thawed) organic strawberries, hazelnuts and hazelnut oil. It was all very pretty... wish I had taken pictures, but hopefully you'll see it on CNN! Sanjay was a very nice guy, and I wished he had been able to stay longer. He's coming out with a book on the topic of aging, so we'll look forward to reading that.

Then onward to a very, very busy weekend. Saturday I met two old friends whom I hadn't seen in quite awhile at an old favorite vegan Chinese restaurants. We split three old favorite dishes: tofu curry hot pot, "beef" and broccoli, and barbeque roast "pork" (all the food is vegan so it's gluten and seitan paradise) and a tomato bean curd soup. I skipped the rice and the fried banana, but ate my fortune cookie. My fortune was, "You will live a long and healthy life and be surrounded by luxury." Now that's something to look forward to! My friend got, "You love gambling and horses." Makes you wonder about the accuracy of these things.

I skipped dinner since I'd had a much bigger than usual lunch, and we were busy anyhow, as we went off to an event downtown with some of our friends. I noticed that my workouts have been paying off: we had to sprint to catch our train home, and whereas I would have been quite winded from the run (including many, many stairs up to the platform), I could do it with relatively little effort. I have to revise my statement on running: in general, I don't care for it, but I will run when a) a large animal is chasing me b) I am in danger of missing a train.

We got home late Saturday night (late for us -- we are early-to-bed people) and then up and at it again at 5 the next morning to get ready for a big party we had at our house at 12:30. I cooked a simple feast, including a tomato vegetable stew with tofu dogs, a fruit salad with Stoneyfield Farms "banilla" yogurt for topping, and black bean hummus with carrots and tomatoes to dip. A friend brought a cilantro/shrimp/lime dish that was delicious. He fed Kieffer several shrimp, winning Kieffer's eternal adoration.

Here's the recipe for the hummus, a nice variation on the traditional:

Purple Black Bean Hummus of the Gods

3 cans black beans, drained
1 can chickpeas, drained
1 - 2 tablespoons tahini, depending on your taste
half salt to taste
2 - 3 cloves of garlic, depending on their size and taste
fresh pepper

Throw it all into the food processor and blend till smooth. You don't need oil for this, but you can add it if you want. It turns a pretty pale purple color. You could also use chili powder of various kinds if you want to give it a slightly southwestern flavor.

Today is President's Day and I'm technically off work, though I'll end up working of course. However, I do get to take it somewhat easy this morning and relax a bit from the crazy weekend.

Posted by april at February 19, 2007 6:20 AM

Comments

Posted by: carolyn at February 19, 2007 7:09 AM

Posted by: Deborah at February 19, 2007 8:05 AM

Posted by: April at February 19, 2007 8:09 AM

Post a comment

Name:

Email Address:

URL:
Remember Me? YesNo

Comments:

Preview

Post