It Must Have Been Something I Ate

What was lost now is found

2008-09-10T22:57:00.006-06:00

I can't honestly believe I've been MIA since May. Almost 4 months. Seriously, how did that happen? What is perhaps more shocking is that I have found the time to post on Dinner with Julie every single night since then, and every night before then. Maybe it's more of a time-sucker than I give it credit for. Then again, it's a good example of what you can achieve when you make up your mind to. I decided from the outset that the daily postings were non-negotiable, and so I just do them without question, just like I used to go to the gym every day, rather than struggle with if and when.

Or maybe it's just easier to write about food than about how much I weigh. I haven't felt much like anyone's cheering section lately, let alone my own, and you know what they say about not having anything good to say.

It's not really that bad. I've just been tired and comfortable and complacent and lazy. (It's the closest I can come to a real vacation.) I actually have over half a dozen partially written posts in my drafts folder; unfinished thoughts and incomplete updates that never really got finished, along with three quarters of my summer to-do list. The entire season drifted by somehow; although I can't believe it's a week into September, July seems like forever ago.

I went to the gym in spurts here and there, losing a few pounds at a time, which I'm fairly certain I've since found. I mostly hung out on the elliptical trainer and went to a few classes, but have yet to find the full-on motivation it takes to sufficiently throw myself into it. (I'd better look fast before my gym membership runs out in February!)

There comes a point in every decision-making process, particularly the big, life-altering ones but I suppose just as often the small, seemingly insignificant ones, when the question arises; when is enough enough? And just as often it's a small, seemingly minor incident that tips the scales in a new direction, making it harder not to do anything than it is to do something. In fact, this attempt to take a break from worry about weight and fat and clothes and calories, a vacation from the mindset I've had since I can remember, is an illusion itself. I don't want to feel as if I'm cultivating excuses, or come across as one of those people who blames her extra pounds on work, her kids, her thyroid condition, her ancestors. The truth is, there's always something. It's called Life. In a world focused on self-improvement, where we are all expected to live our best lives and constantly make ourselves over and never ever believe there is no room for an upgrade, where we admire success stories and expose our dark underbellies under the premise that we will quickly fix them, it's difficult to relax and just live in the now, happy with what we are and what we have, cellulite and all. At the end of my life I don't want to look back over unsatisfied decades spent on a quest for self-improvement. I don't want to gauge my self-worth on how many miles I ran or ice cream cones I turned down in favour of fresh vegetables, or lose mental health points for the opposite.

At the same time, I want to feel and be healthy. I think the resistance is more to the feeling of societal obligation.

That, and I really really like cupcakes and cheese and chocolate chip cookie dough.

Ready, set... ready?

2008-05-26T07:43:00.006-06:00

I worry that all these posts come across with an air of poor me, it's so hard to haul my sorry self to the gym and turn down all the fantastic food that comes my way.

My point, I think, is that roadblocks are sometimes tough to identify and may be there without the owner of the road even being aware of their existence. We fly through life so quickly, so often oblivious to our own feelings as we pour our resources elsewhere. I am practiced at the art of sweeping things away; I even have a large mental push broom that I pull out every time I start berating myself over a job not very well done or at night when I lie awake late in a panic over all the things that I haven`t gotten to yet. Just like everyone else.

I think one of the best things you can do for and with yourself, whether you`re struggling with weight or not (but especially if you are), is to spend some time exclusively in the company of your own mind. Go somewhere isolated, completely without distraction, for an entire day if you can. Bring nothing, including intentions. Plan nothing. When you get used to the idea that there is no one else to worry about, or answer, or deflect off of, turn yourself around, grab yourself by the shoulders, look yourself straight in the eye and ask what`s up. Because you won`t get this feedback from any book or magazine or at a weight loss group; all the information and intention we all take in ultimately gets filtered through whatever is going on in your own head.

The real cost of eating out!

2008-05-05T18:24:00.006-06:00

I've just finished a short article for FFWD addressing the real cost of eating out. With all the media stories about rising food prices, the cost no one seems to talk about is the cost we are mostly oblivious to: fat and calories. (In Canada, a restaurant’s disclosure of nutritional information is voluntary.) Last month, the New York City Board of Health voted unanimously to pass a new law that requires large fast-food chains to post calorie information about standardized food items on their menus, helping consumers make healthier choices.

Most of us are aware of the calorie and fat cost of a Big Mac (540 calories, 29 g fat and 1020 mg sodium) and understand that fast food in general is an unhealthy choice. But because restaurants are not required to provide nutritional information for the items on their menus (like packaged food products must do), it’s difficult to gauge what you’re consuming at what might seem like a wholesome dining room alternative to a drive-thru.

Case in point: at Earl's, a penne Alfredo with chicken entrée weighs in at 1777 calories, with 123 grams of fat (67 of them saturated) and 2424 mg sodium. That's the caloric equivalent of more than three Big Macs, and the fat equivalent of over four. (You're actually better off having a couple of Big Macs for lunch.) Similarly, Spicy Thai Green Curry with Shrimp contains 1065 calories, 78 grams fat (38.5 g of them saturated) and 3381 mg sodium. (To gauge how much this is, 1500 mg is about as much sodium the average Canadian should consume over an entire day.) Their cheeseburger is twice that of a Quarter Pounder with cheese, at 870 calories and 59 grams of fat. A salad isn't always a better option; Earls’ popular Hot Chicken Caesar packs 1120 calories and 77 grams of fat.

At The Keg, an order of Honey BBQ Ribs, on their own without any sides, will cost you 2212 calories and 167 grams of fat. (The kids’ platter is half that - still far too much even for an adult.) Add a twice baked potato (571 calories; 29 g fat), Caesar salad (492 calories; 55 g fat) and garlic cheese toast (965 calories; 51 g fat) and you’re eating 4240 calories and 302 grams of fat.

And when you're eating out, who only gets an entrée? At Milestones, the Bocconcini Garlic Bread appetizer contains 1060 calories, 61 grams of fat and 2050 mg sodium; the Butterscotch Pot de Crème dessert weighs in at 940 calories and 74 grams of fat, and perhaps most shocking: on the children’s menu, the Noodles & Cheddar with Garlic Cream Sauce contains 910 calories and 54 grams of fat and the Chicken Tenders with Fries and Ranch Dressing has 810 calories, 48 grams of fat and 2200 mg of sodium. On the regular menu, their Shanghai Noodle Stir Fry contains 1500 calories and a staggering 4200 mg of sodium – about 3 days’ worth of sodium in one entrée.

Kudos to Earls, The Keg and Milestones for at least posting nutritional information on their websites though. I was unable to get any info from Moxie's, even after emailing the company. But now that I see what's in a typical dish, I can't say I blame them for not wanting us to know what's really in that spinach & artichoke dip.

Empty Bowls!

2008-04-29T10:11:00.001-06:00

The Empty Bowl Benefit Online Auction has begun!

Last week I was one of many who had the opportunity to paint a bowl to auction off to benefit the Calgary Interfaith Food Bank. All the bowls are being auctioned off at the Food Bank website, and can be viewed in all their glory at various downtown locations.

You can bid on my fabulous hand-painted fish bowl here! (It comes with delivery, a bag of CBC swag, and of course filled with bacon caramel corn!)

It's a plastic planet.

2008-04-23T10:19:00.004-06:00

Good to hear the news that the government is taking immediate action to ban BPA, a man-made substance that could potentially pose health risks.

I'm not sure I understand why they aren't taking similar action against trans-fats, also a man-made substance that have been proven beyond a doubt to be harmful.

(To clear this question up: there do exist naturally occurring trans fats, typically showing up in very low levels in products like cheese. These are not harmful; it's the man-made trans fats we need to avoid: anything labeled "partially hydrogenated" - even if it says "trans fat free" on the package. In Canada, a food product can be labelled trans fat free if it contains 0.5 g or less per serving.)

As I was writing this Yoni's blog post was delivered to my inbox - as he put it, I guess the baby bottle industry lobby isn't as powerful as Big Food's!

Not that I eat there anyway.

2008-04-17T10:26:00.002-06:00

Did you hear the one about the BC McDonald's employee who was granted $50,000 in damages because she was fired for not washing her hands? I guess it's your human right not to, even when handling other people's food. Can you imagine the precedent this could set?

As usual, an interesting tidbit I picked up on Yoni's blog.

More later. I'm off to the gym.

Let them eat cake!

2008-04-10T21:20:00.004-06:00

The world never fails to horrify me.

We had a snow day today, and I vowed to make time to post again, I'm sorry for my absence despite encouraging and concerned emails. Problem is, I've committed to post on Dinner with Julie every single night for a year, with photos, which is seriously cutting into my blogging time. I didn't think of that when I signed up for a year of homework. I keep thinking I'm going to switch this site over to a new domain, and then, as usual, I don't.

So as I was flipping channels from the hockey game to the DVD channel to play Chirp, Quack and Peep for W, I flipped past America's Most Smartest Model. What caught my attention was the stick-thin model, who looked like a bee had just stung her on the lip, trembling at the sight of a slice of chocolate cake. Literally trembling, on the verge of tears. It gets worse: the piece of chocolate cake was their challenge. Remember Fear Factor, with the bowls full of deep fried beetles or horse testicles they had to eat? You get the gist.

So here's the premise: the panel of models were asked questions, and if you got your question right you could give your piece of cake to whichever other model you wanted. So, presumably, they would get fat. (As if this would instantaneously happen, like pulling the rip cord on an inflatable dingy.) The bee-sting girl couldn't bring herself to eat it, and was disquailfied from the competition. SERIOUSLY. They'd rather be booted off the show than eat a piece of cake. The host dramatically read the calorie and fat count as they paraded it out, as if relaying how many poisonous tentacles there were on a giant jellyfish.

I cannot imagine a better way to encouage (and in fact plant the idea of) eating disorders in girls across North America. Boys too; there was no shortage of male models, the most hated of them scarfing down slice after slice of cake. I flipped it off when round 2 came: pancakes. The girls literally recoiled in horror, speaking individually to the camera about the "nastiness" of the pancakes - "the syrup was soaked right through!" oh the horror, the horror...

It's no wonder why 20something girls live on diet pills and RockStar, in fear of foods like chocolate cake, and it seems to be more than ever considered a form of weakness, a sin, to "give in" and eat a slice. (Ironic that cake is also the focal point of birthdays, weddings, holidays and other celebrations, and has been for centuries.)

Can you imagine what people anywhere else in the world would think if they saw, on international TV, that the ultimate punishment for stupidity was a slice of cake? Perhaps the producers should get a few slices.

Still here!

2008-04-03T04:41:00.004-06:00

Sorry for the radio silence. I have this unshakable image in my head of a dog going full tilt, trying to turn the corner on a glassy laminate floor, scrambling to get a grip as he hurtles sideways, straight into April. How did it get to be April? How have I gone for almost 3 weeks without a post? To be honest I feel sheepish every time I think to check in, since I still don't have much progress to report. Or any, I'm sure, since I haven't even so much as poked my head into the gym yet. After all that rah rah hoopla about getting up and going. (Do what I say, not what I do.)

But I do have that crisp membership card in my wallet; it's perfect for scraping the ice off my windshield.

I'd like to relate all sorts of contributing factors and circumstances, but that would just sound like I lost my homework.

This would be me this week, if I had blue fur:

And I can't resist posting this clip from Jimmy Kimmel live...

43% not-chicken slurry

2008-03-13T18:43:00.001-06:00

The other day I sent my friend Yoni a detailed ingredient list from KFC, knowing that a) he'd love it, and b) he'd do a much better job of posting about it than me! So if you want to know what's really in that chicken, visit Yoni's blog, Weighty Matters.

Pulling an all-nighter...

2008-03-03T04:33:00.004-07:00

We started shooting at 10pm tonight, and it's around 4am now. We're shooting the Roasting and Freezer meals episodes. The whole crew was excited about our overnight shoot; we stocked up on snacks and coffee, but we're already coffeed out, and too tired for chips. We figured since the set is blocked from light and sound that we could convince ourselves that it's really afternoon, not morning. It's sort of working.

I completely forgot that I started posting my weight sometime ago. I've been intermittently hopping on the scale - usually first thing in the morning to keep it constant - I know from past experience that I weigh more in the evenings, less after a workout, and less at a certain time each month, the timing of which makes absolutely no sense. Anyway, yesterday I was at 199 - passed the 200 mark again, which would have been a much better feeling if I could have gotten past the memory of dropping below it last time (for the first time since Junior High - so it was a huge triumph at the time) and the fact that I shouldn't have been up over 200 again in the first place. At least I wasn't aiming for the 300 mark again.

My progress isn't as swift as it used to be, partially because I'm not devoting as much attention to getting back in shape as I should, but also because I'm not getting enough sleep, and really I'm not eating as well as I should. These long days on the set, around food, making 8+ recipes per day (all of which we have to eat, usually in more than one take, at the end of each act) is not the optimal scenario. I'd like to think that getting older has nothing to do with it, but it likely has.

At any rate, at least it's going in the right direction. It's difficult to live in a society so focused on instant gratification, one that values convenience virtually above all else. I'd love to drop 10 pounds in a week without exercising and while eating whatever I want, but I understand that's not how it works in real life. I'd rather do it the slow, honest, effective way. Working with beautiful, skinny girls more than 10 years younger than me who live on diet Rock Star, cigarettes and diet pills makes me extraordinarily sad. It makes me resent even more the merit we place on thinness, and the culture that made them this way. I want to feed them. I want them to sit and eat bowls of pasta, granola and barley and lentils; whole, nourishing foods that will fill them up and satisfy them in a way only good food can. I hate that so many women and men fear their food, and miss out on so much of what's good and real in life because of it.

Or maybe I'm just overtired.

Sorry for the radio silence...

2008-02-25T23:35:00.003-07:00

(I like this photo because it looks like Ned is being sucked up into the light fixture.)

I have about a hundred half-posts written, but never seem to finish them (perhaps I should put myself on a daily schedule, like I do with Dinner with Julie!)

We're shooting season 2 of It's Just Food, and we have been shooting for 3 days; this morning I was on set just after 7am, and left at 10pm. I get home just in time to read W some stories and have him go squirrelly because he hasn't seen me all day (if I'm lucky and he's not already asleep), check my email, go through my stuff for the next day, do some laundy if I need to, suddenly it's midnight and I have to be up all too early again...

We have Thursday off shooting, and then should be wrapped by March 4, except for a few extras here and there. So check back then... meanwhile I'll try to at least post some recipes!

Out of the shoebox, into the newspaper.

2008-02-20T08:57:00.005-07:00

A story about me, along with before and after photos, are in newspapers across Canada today. (Timmins Daily Press, Winnipeg Sun, London Free Press, Edmonton Sun, Toronto Sun, Ottawa Sun and Calgary Sun, as far as I know.) These few images that were spared being torn into bits either because I didn't have the opportunity to (if they were in someone else's shoe box) or I actually didn't think they were that bad.

It occurs to me now that I never have posted before photos, and I know people are curious to see them. I tried to do a little sidebar slideshow, but of course never did get it to work properly.

So here goes. The first one is me with my neice, who was 2 at the time and is 9 now - for a long time she didn't recognize who this is with her in the photo:

This is the after photo they chose for the paper. If you look closely at this picture you can see I have a scarred stomach (not from pregnancy) - but that's another post.

So, back to those cake and broccoli photos. Funny it was also spotted in Heathrow - I saw this coming off the plane in Toronto a few weeks ago. It was an ad for an insurance company or something completely un-food related... the point they were trying to make was that some things are clear black and white, like chocolate cake and broccoli. Easy to figure out. Everyone knows broccoli is good and chocolate cake is bad, right?

This is the scary part, that everyone is expected to understand this. Think about it: cakes are a huge part of our culture; we choose cake to celebrate joyous occasions - birthdays, weddings, births, anniversaries, graduations. Anything that calls for a party, calls for cake.

And yet, we also label it "bad". Not only from a nutritional standpoint; we all know that broccoli is good for you and cake generally doesn't have a lot to offer in terms of nutrition. But it goes way beyond that. If you eat broccoli, you're a good person, doing a good thing. Good for you. If you eat cake you are a bad person, and weak, with no willpower. How can we not be mixed up about all this food and weight stuff with so many mixed messages flying around?

Wanting a big piece of chocolate cake is not a sign of weakness, or a character flaw. Which isn't to say we should all indulge in cake free-for-alls, but as I think I've mentioned before: guilt is a terrible motivator. I'm pretty sure feeling badly about oneself never helped anyone accomplish anything. In fact, the weight loss industry depends on this: with a 5% success rate, why it a $50 billion industry? If there was another product on the market that failed 95% of the time, how many repeat customers do you think they would have? It's because we always blame ourselves and our shortcomings, instead of those impossible promises.

What's wrong with this picture?

2008-02-19T11:58:00.002-07:00

Embrace your inner Cookie Monster.

2008-02-17T20:49:00.007-07:00

My niece and nephew were over on Thursday-Friday, and it being Valentine's Day, we made heart-shaped cookies. V-Day isn't a big deal around here, unless you're under 10.

Baking cookies is something I love to do, with or without Emily & Ben. It's a pleasure that shouldn't be overshadowed by guilt over fat and calories. For most of my life there existed a little black scribbly cloud, something you might see over a grumpy cartoon character, every time I baked cookies, pies, cakes, scones... anything that had always been on the "bad" list. What I didn't realize for years was that I started to approach life from a standpoint of damage control: how am I going to get through the holidays? through this party, through my birthday/wedding/summer vacation?

Baking cookies is one small ceremony that I am not willing to give up, nor feel guilt or stress over. Wanting to eat warm cookies, straight from the oven, is not a sign of weakness, or lack of will power, or something to be angry with yourself for. Eat one or two, make sure you get some exercise, and give the rest away if they are really going to torture you by being there. Learning how to bake with less fat and fewer calories is another way to take the edge off; since fat has more than twice the calories of protein or carbohydrate, it's the best way to trim calories. Just please don't think hey, they're low fat - I can eat twice as much of them! That defeats the whole point.

Rolled Sugar Cookies

This is a great basic cookie dough to start with; you can add spices and flavorings to customize them if you like. It’s important when you make rolled cookies to handle the dough as little as possible, and gently re-roll any scraps only once. Handling the dough too much develops the gluten, making your cookies tough.

1/4 cup butter, softened
1 Tbsp. canola oil
3/4 cup sugar
grated zest of 1 lemon (optional)
1 large egg
1 tsp. vanilla
1 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt

In a large bowl, beat butter, oil, sugar and lemon zest with an electric mixer until well combined. Add egg and vanilla and beat for a minute, until smooth and light.

In a small bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder and salt. Add to the sugar mixture and stir by hand just until you have a soft dough. Shape the dough into a disc, wrap in plastic and refrigerate for an hour or until well chilled.

When you’re ready to bake, preheat the oven to 350°F. Roll the dough out between two sheets of waxed paper or on a surface very lightly dusted with a combination of flour and sugar until it’s 1/8”–1/4” thick. Cut out cookies using a 2”–3” cookie cutter or glass rim. Reroll the scraps once to get as many cookies as possible.

Place the cookies an inch apart on a cookie sheet that has been sprayed with nonstick spray. Bake for 10–12 minutes, until pale golden around the edges. Transfer to a wire rack to cool. Makes 3 dozen 2 3/4” cookies.

Per Cookie: 54 calories, 1.9 g fat (0.9 g saturated fat, 0.7 g monounsaturated fat, 0.2 g polyunsaturated fat), 8.6 g carbohydrates, 9.4 mg cholesterol, 0.8 g protein, 0.2 g fiber. 31% calories from fat

Orange Sugar Cookies with Chocolate: Substitute grated orange zest for the lemon zest. Place 3/4 cup chocolate chips in a zip lock baggie, seal and place in a bowl of very warm water to melt. When the cookies have cooled and the chocolate has melted (knead it with your fingers to make sure there are no bits left), snip a tiny hole in one corner of the baggie. Drizzle the cookies with melted chocolate by squeezing the bag. Adds 1 g fat per cookie.

Lemon Poppyseed Sugar Cookies: Include the lemon zest, and add 2 Tbsp. poppyseeds to the sugar mixture. Mix and bake as directed.

Chocolate Sugar Cookies: Replace 1/2 cup of the flour with cocoa.

Tiny Lemon Curd Sandwiches: Cut rolled-out dough into rounds with a small (about an inch) round cookie cutter. Spread baked, cooled cookies with lemon curd, top with a second cookie and sprinkle with icing sugar.

Cookie Monster answers the Proust Questionairre

2008-02-15T16:50:00.003-07:00

How could I not post this video?
Here it is, on NPR.

It's not what you're eating, it's what's eating you.

2008-02-13T22:59:00.006-07:00

(Er, no... I'm pretty sure it's what I'm eating.)

How often have you heard this advice? That in order to successfully lose weight you have to figure out what's really bothering you so much, and deal with that first. Great. So not only do I have extra weight to lose, I have to first repair my marriage, get a new job, reorganize my house, pay off my debts, get over those issues with my mother/father/kids/friend/ex, or whatever it is that's eating me alive, or at least learn how to deal with them in a different way before I can even hope to be successful in the weight loss arena. Super, I'll get right on that.

Don't get me wrong, if Ben & Jerry have become your very best friends you run to whenever you're upset, maybe you need a new support group. Being able to identify what's bothing you is always a good thing, but merely recognizing the source of my problems never stopped me from wanting to eat when those stresses welled up. And really, this is what addicts do; some smoke or drink to take the edge off, and the pharmaceutical industry is doing very well, thank you. The world is full of ways to ease the pain and distract us from our problems: drugs, temper tantrums, shopping sprees, adrenaline rushes, violence, affairs. It's unfortunate that what makes me feel better is not only readily available everywhere I go, but it's perfectly legal, socially acceptable and in fact necessary to stay alive.

Besides, I'm just as inclined to eat when I'm happy or relaxed as when I'm sad, mad or stressed out. So there.

There is a good point, hidden in that message, but I think it has more to do with clearing your plate as much as possible so that all your energies can be focused on the task at hand. If you're beaten down to begin with, you aren't likely going to find the self-confidence and strength you need to do this thing. And it's true that while cleaning your house won't in itself make you lose weight (did you see Oprah last week, with Peter Walsh, author of "Does This Clutter Make my Butt Look Fat?"), it does remove one source of stress, and clearing your surroundings does help clear your mind, as much as organizing your environment makes you feel on top of things. (That's what I hear, anyway.) Plus there's the whole matter of feeling good about yourself, and capeable, and drowning in papers, garbage and dirty laundry doesn't do a lot of good in the ego department.

Fortunately, you can really get your heart rate up by doing a whirlwind clean. Think about it: cleaning involves a lot of bending, squatting, lunging, running up and down stairs... and if you do it as fast as you possibly can, you get a lot done. Any sort of physical activity burns calories. The more varied your activities, the better, since your body adapts to whatever you do on a regular basis. And it's difficult, during the bleak midwinter, to motivate yourself outdoors or to the gym. So lets all pledge to do a lunge or a squat every time we need to pick up a toy or dirty socks; we'll all be ripped and more organized. Just don't put it on yourself to solve every problem in your life first, because really, a lot of problems aren't up to you to solve, or aren't easily settled. But if there's anything that isn't really as important as you might think it is, or that can be temporarily backburnered, do it. As if you were clearing your mental and emotional plates in order to take on a major task, because really, that's what you're doing.

Battle of the wits

2008-02-09T14:26:00.001-07:00

We went downtown today, thinking it would be nice and empty due to super sub-zero temperatures, and W needed to run some energy off. The problem with downtown is that a large chunk of it, right underneath Devonian Gardens where we go play on the bridges and W tries to pet the koi, smells like baking cinnamon buns. Fat, sweet and starchy is a winning combination for me, particularly when it involves some element of freshly baked bread. Today I wanted a Cinzeo cinnamon bun. Bad. I needed one real bad.

So my brain and I had a conversation that went something like this:

Brain (or it could have been my gut… it’s hard to tell, I’m pretty sure they are in cahoots with each other): Whatever. You’re sick; you aren’t going to be able to exercise anyway. And there’s that party tonight, so you might as well…

Me: yeah, you’re right. But, you know those enormous cinnamon buns have about 800 calories…

Brain: so what? You’re sharing it with Mike. You can just have a few bites, right?

Me: but I won’t just have a few bites! Have you tried those things? I’ll either be tortured by watching Mike eat it, or I’ll down half of it myself.

Brain: but did you hear who’s coming to the party tonight? Crave cupcakes! The mini ones! You’re never going to get past them, so you might as well just eat cinnamon buns and cupcakes today, and start tomorrow.

Me (I am a doormat to the brain/gut team): yeah, you’re right… who am I to pass up free cupcakes anyway?

Brain: exactly. And it’s not fair to Mike to deprive him of a cinnamon bun, just because you need to lose weight! Besides, it's -30 outside. You can hide under that sweater for months still. And you know, if you just relax today, and recharge, you'll be even better at getting back into the groove tomorrow...

My brain/gut is a master negotiator, and used to getting its way. But I realized that it is powerless without me, its puppet. Did you ever see that episode of Seinfeld where his brain is playing chess against his, um, unit? If my life had a writer, and a laugh track, and a costume department, things would be a lot more entertaining. (Like when I was going to Toronto last week on an overloaded plane, and everyone was cranky and surly, silently waiting for their luggage, and then two bags popped out down the chute - and they were mine! And so I grabbed them and said to the crowd: I win! And no one laughed. If I had been Jerry Seinfeld, that would have totally been funny to everyone else, too.)

So I came home and baked a batch of cinnamon biscuits instead. I'll have one and bring the rest to the neighbors across the street who just had a baby, or throw the rest in the freezer; this tactic doesn't work with brownies (instead of being turned off them I developed a taste for frozen brownies), but it will with these. And I get to enjoy the smell all over again, too.

Cinnamon Sticky Biscuits

Try laying thin slices of these biscuits on top of a dish of peaches or apples tossed with sugar, then bake at 350° F for 20-30 minutes for a phenomenal fruit cobbler.

Stickiness:
2 Tbsp. butter
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 Tbsp. honey or corn syrup

Biscuits:
2 cups flour
1 Tbsp. baking powder
1 Tbsp. sugar
1/4 tsp. salt
3/4 cup milk
1/4 cup canola oil

Filling:
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 cup raisins and/or chopped pecans (optional)

Preheat oven to 400° F.

Combine butter, brown sugar and honey in a small saucepan or microwave-safe bowl and heat until melted and smooth. Pour over the bottom of an 8”x8” baking pan that has been sprayed with non-stick spray.

In a large bowl, combine flour, baking powder, sugar and salt. Add the milk and canola oil and stir by hand just until you have a soft dough. Do not overmix!

On a lightly floured surface, pat or roll the dough into a 9” x 14” rectangle. Sprinkle with brown sugar, cinnamon and raisins or nuts. Starting from a long side, roll tightly jelly-roll style into a log. Cut into 9 biscuits using dental floss or a serrated knife, and place cut side down in the pan.

Bake for 20 minutes, until golden and bubbly. Invert onto a platter while still warm.

Makes 9 sticky biscuits.

Per biscuit: 270 calories, 9 g total fat (2.2 g saturated fat, 4.4 g monounsaturated fat, 2 g polyunsaturated fat), 3.6 g protein, 44 g carbohydrate, 7.7 mg cholesterol, 0.9 g fiber. 30% calories from fat.

Apricot Sticky Biscuits: place a canned apricot half cut side down in each cup. Place the biscuits on top and bake for 20 minutes, until golden.

Apple Pie Rolls: sprinkle the dough with a peeled and thinly sliced tart apple along with the brown sugar and cinnamon. Roll and bake as directed.

Garlic Cheese Rolls: omit the stickiness and filling, and instead spread the rolled dough with a mixture of 1 Tbsp. butter or oil and 2-3 crushed cloves of garlic. Sprinkle with ½ cup grated old cheddar cheese, and scatter with a few chopped sun dried tomatoes and some fresh parsley if you like. Roll and bake as directed.

As seen on TV

2008-02-08T19:20:00.000-07:00

In the last half hour, I've seen an ad for a clinic in Seattle you should choose if you have brain cancer (complete with buff young makeuped bald woman coming from the gym to her radiation treatments - there is so much wrong with this I can't even begin, besides the disturbing fact that there are actually enough potential customers out there to warrant such an ad campaign), for little packets of pink lemonade flavored K20 protein-fiber powder you add to your bottled water from the good folks at Kellogg's (who, as I know I've mentioned too many times before, brought us cereal bars that contain more sugar and less fiber than Famous Amos chocolate chip cookies, and Special K Fruit & Yogurt with more refined rice and sugar than whole grain wheat, dyed apple pieces instead of berries, and yogurt coating made of sugar, high fructose corn syrup and partially hydrogenated palm oil), and now this:

(With patented health science technology, and a 2800 RPM hula motor!!)

You aren't what you eat.

2008-02-06T08:44:00.000-07:00

You're what you think. Like my artist/musician/grown-up skateboarder friend Kevin says, 99% of your life happens behind your eyes. (Meaning that's where your brain is.) This is very true. Often we have little control over our experiences, but what can control is what we do with them once they belong to us. Gosh, I sound deep.

I met a lot of fantastic people in Toronto, and a lot of them, like many who hear for the first time that I used to be over 300 pounds, were curious. The most common question people ask (after, I suppose, "how did you do it??") is: what changed? How was I not able to lose weight for so long, and then suddenly able to? After so many failed relationships with Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig (I'm still turned off frozen meals), Diet Centre, Nutrisystem, countless dieticians, fad diets and do-it-yourself books and tapes, even Richard Simmons' stack of diet cards, what was it? After almost 30 years of wanting nothing more desperately than to be thin and normal and not preoccupied with food and weight and calories and exercise and the fact that my thighs were chafing straight through my pant legs the vast majority of the time? (I often wonder what I would have done with all that energy if it was available to be spent elsewhere; I should be a rocket scientist and have cured cancer by now.)

Any of you who are reading this, and wondering what the Big Secret is, this is it. Not changing your mind per se, but understanding that you are the one in control here. Essentially, I had to forget everything I thought I knew about myself and what I was capable of. After years of small failures, you learn that you aren't able to do it. It becomes habit, almost. Most of the time we blame ourselves, of course, thus keeping the weight loss industry in business, and guilt is a terrible motivator.

So the only thing that changed, from one moment until the next, was my mind. What else could have? For years, people thought I needed more incentive. My Dad offered me a new wardrobe if I lost weight. Friends suggested we put away X dollars per pound, to go on a trip at the end to celebrate. What these compassionate and well-meaning people just could never understand was that it was not humanly possible to want it more badly than I already did.

I wish it hadn't happened on a New Year's eve. This timing is purely coincidental; New Year's resolutions did not come into play here, only the fact that we were at a New Year's eve party on that particular night makes it worth mentioning.

Let me preface this story by telling you, in case you hadn't figured it out already, that I have always been overweight, since as far back as my memories will go. My sisters weren't; my parents weren't. I didn't grow up in a broken, disfunctional family who were abusive or taught me bad eating habits and drove me to drink, so to speak. Quite the opposite, actually. We skiied and camped and hiked and my parents always packed along healthy bagels (quite the novelty in the day), trail mix, bio bread, fruit and wedges of cheese. My parents were both athletic, my dad a doctor. When we went on ski weekends and stayed in hotels, two of their daughters would take off to find the pool immediately upon check-in, while the other sniffed out the vending machines (loved those things - no witnesses) and was always skulking around the pay phones, hoping to score some change. One guess which one I was.

So Mike and I are at this house party. With all our friends, people we've been friends with for a long time, many of whom had even been roommates off and on. You know, the kind of friends you really bond with in that way you do when you're in your 20s. The point is, they knew me and knew what I looked like. I was at least 330 pounds - my scale only went up to 330, so I could have weighed more, but I wasn't about to trek down to the post office and ask if I could please borrow their scale for a sec.

Do you have one of those security veils in your brain that protects you from really seeing what you don't really want to see? Maybe it's called denial. Or maybe it's those nasty cravings, knowing that if they doesn't manifest themselves into something that can convince you things aren't really that bad, you might stop feeding them. Whatever it is, that protective barrier was nowhere in sight when I went into the bathroom, closed the door and came face to face with myself in the full-length mirror hanging on the back.

I wish I was a better writer right now.

I mean, I knew I wore a size 26-28, what did I think I looked like? I had torn up a lifetime worth of pictures of myself, always explaining away my immense hugeness as a bad camera angle, or the fact that I wasn't particularly photogenic. Even after I sank a paddleboat in the middle of a busy lake one summer, I wasn't humiliated enough to do something about it. I cried, and tried, or thought I tried.

So here I was, staring down a total stranger, wanting to just rip that fat suit off of myself because I couldn't see myself through it. I was claustrophobic, panicked, devastated (again), mortified. I sat down on the bathroom floor with my back against the door, unable to go back out because I was so afraid someone might see me. These people I had been hanging out with for hours already. If I would have been able to crawl out the window, I would have. Instead, I was a sobbing, snotty mess, completely crushed by this weight for something like the five thousandth time in my life. Not only was it ruining me, it was ruining my New Year's eve party.

Then, instantly, my crying turned to laughing. Giggling, almost. (And no, I wasn't drunk.) It suddenly seemed so ridiculous. Insane, even. What was all this grief about? Extra weight? There is a cure for that, you know. All this time I had been treating the situation like something I had no control over, like I was a victim of my body, shackled by it. But: I knew what I had to do to lose weight! Everyone does. We all do. Everyone who asks me what I did, holding their breaths with hopeful anticipation, deflates when I tell them I excercised and ate properly, and less. Because they know that already. But knowing the path and walking it are very different things. Then again, if I know my way, like I know what route to take if I want to go to China or Indonesia or Delaware, or if I wanted to become a doctor, or learn the saxophone, or start a business, why don't I just go already?

Suddenly, the only thing that seemed more impossible than losing weight was not losing it.

Speechless

2008-02-05T23:38:00.000-07:00

Seriously, I am without speech. My cold, compounded with the activities of the past 2 days, which mostly included a lot of me fervently talking, has completely eradicated my voice. It was all I could do to squeak out my drink order on the plane on the way home, and I couldn't even read Willem's bedtime story to him beyond a whisper.

Since it took 8 hours to get here, I was about to crawl into bed beside him. But then I decided to check my email and blog comments, and now I'm speechless on a whole new level that has nothing to do with phlegm or an abused voicebox.

I have so many notes and reflections in my head and in my tattered notebook that I'm dying to get out, so many little fires that were fanned by conversations I've had in the last two days, but really the most important thing I want to say is this:
If I, who adores food above all else and is about as unenthusiastic about exercise as anyone I know, can lose 165 pounds, I promise that you have it in you too. I'll help you look.

One Smart Cookie

2008-02-04T22:26:00.001-07:00

I've started to write tonight, but my thoughts got ahead of me and split apart into three tangents, which means I have three half-written posts and a brutal cold that makes me sound like I've been smoking two packs a day and then singing Janice Joplin karaoke all night. Tomorrow I fully expect everyone to be subtly checking me for signs of an Adam's apple. And since it's closing in on 1am, I'm going to go to bed and leave you with a recipe.

If you're looking for the cookies I made on Canada AM, here they are:

Chocolava Cookies from One Smart Cookie

These are low fat, but with a chewy, brownie-like texture. You roll them in icing sugar before you bake them so that they end up with a crackled surface as they rise and spread, but you can eliminate that step if you like for plain chocolate cookies. The key is to not overbake them - you want them to be set around the edges but still soft in the middle, or they won't be chewy once they cool down (if you can wait that long) - remember that cookies firm up as they cool, so they can't be set all the way through (or golden all the way through, if you're making plain chocolate chip cookies), or they won't be chewy anymore once they cool. Enjoy!

1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour

1 cup sugar

1/3 cup packed brown sugar

1/2 cup cocoa

1 tsp. baking powder

1/4 tsp. salt

1/4 cup butter, at room temperature

3 large egg whites or 2 large eggs

2 tsp. vanilla

Icing sugar, for rolling

Preheat oven to 350° F.

In a large bowl or in the bowl of a food processor, combine the flour, sugar, brown sugar, cocoa, baking powder and salt, breaking up any lumps of brown sugar. Add the butter and work it in with a fork or pastry cutter (or pulse in the food processor) until the mixture is well blended. If you use a food processor, transfer the mixture to a large bowl.

Add the egg whites or whole eggs and vanilla and stir by hand (I use a spatula – that way you can scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl as you mix) until the dough comes together, using your fingers if necessary. The mixture will seem dry at first, and the dough will be sticky because of the low fat content. But keep going, use your hands if you need to, and the dough will come together!

Place a few spoonfuls of icing sugar in a shallow dish. Roll the dough into walnut-sized balls and roll in the sugar to coat. Place 1”-2” apart on a cookie sheet that has been sprayed with non-stick spray.Bake for about 12 minutes, until just set around the edges but still soft in the middle. Transfer to a wire rack to cool. Makes 2 dozen cookies.

Per cookie: 92 calories, 2.1 g fat (0.4 g saturated fat, 1.3 g monounsaturated fat, 0.2 g polyunsaturated fat), 17.8 g carbohydrates, 0 mg cholesterol, 1 g fiber. 20% calories from fat.

Free bird

2008-02-03T15:10:00.000-07:00

I'm not a small person. No matter how much weight I lose, I'll never be small (and I truly have no interest in ever being skinny - it's just not me) - at about 6 feet tall (if I stand up straight - I have awful posture) I have quarterback shoulders that make it difficult to buy women's clothing, and, as a not very good friend once pointed out, "the biggest barrel chest she's ever seen!" On today's flight I was reminded of this, squished in the middle seat between a guy who probably was an actual quarterback and another woman at least my size, with a 4 month old baby on her lap. (This I don't mind, honestly, the biggest deal for me was that it made me miss Willem, and I constantly wanted to smell her head.) Our shoulders were literally pressed up against each others', and I had to sit with my arms curled in front of me (not easy, nor comfy) which made it impossible not to spill my Starbucks (which they got wrong anyway) all over the front of myself. My kneecaps, pressed right up against the seat in front of me, were lightly crushed when the occupant decided to recline it right after takeoff.

But it wasn't so bad. Every time I take a flight somewhere I'm reminded of the days I needed a seatbelt extension. If you have not experienced this, believe me, it can be humiliating. When I got to the point where I couldn't suck it in and hold my breath hard enough to will it closed, I got away with laying the strap across my middle and strategically positioning my right elbow to conceal the gap when the flight attendants came through to check. Then on the flight back I got busted.

Don't get me wrong, I understand it was her job and seatbelts are there for the safety of passengers; I also know that there are more tactful ways of dealing with certain issues, and there are some people who just don't like you as much when you're fat. It seems to be the last socially acceptible prejudice.

On this particular flight I had pulled my aforementioned trick and was trying hard to look absorbed in my book when the flight attendant came along and asked me to show her my seatbelt. Clearly she had an eye for this thing and knew I was beyond its maximum capacity. I lamely feigned that same surprise my best friend in high school and I used to attempt (with similar success) when the doormen at the bar asked us for ID at 16. Oh... is it not done up? Here, um, let me get this... (insert uncomfortable struggle).

She sighed loudly in annoyed exasparation, then turned and called to the front of the plane for another attendant to get a seatbelt extension for me. Sitting over the wing, this of course meant the entire plane, buckled and prepared for take-off, heard the request. Turns out her announcement was unnecessary, as she went up to retrieve it herself, and then marched it back to me, arm outstretched the entire way to present it curled up in her open palm, as if I was holding the entire flight up with my fatness.

After that, I didn't fly for awhile. These days, I still get a slightly absurd thrill out of doing my seatbelt up, particularly when I have a chance to tighten it. Other sources of excitement include squatting and putting things in my front pockets. Seriously. When I was heavy (again, I don't have a better description for what has in many ways turned into my previous life) I would have recurring dreams about wearing pants with front pockets, and of putting change and keys in those pockets. And taking them out again. When you have spent the majority of your life without a waist, wearing stretch pants from Cotton Ginny Plus, this is a very big deal.

The first time the Oprah Show called (sorry to name drop, but come on, it's Oprah- wouldn't you?) they wanted to give new experiences to guests (of whom I was a contender) who had lost a significant amount of weight - the example they used was sending them on an airplane when they had previously been too large to fly. The producer asked if I could think of anything I hadn't done that I was now able to. Honestly, all I could think of was being able to put things in the front pockets of my jeans, and squatting. It was the little things I missed out on that made me feel different, and worse for it. I'm not sure that would have made good TV, but it sure was real for me.

Leaving on a jet plane (but it's OK, I know when I'll be back again - Wednesday).

2008-02-02T23:54:00.000-07:00

I'm just now starting to pack for my trip to Toronto tomorrow. I always think if I leave it until the last possible minute, I'll spend less time panicking about the fact that I have nothing to wear. (Another solution would have been to go shopping, but I promised myself I wouldn't buy any more clothes until they could be a smaller size. Spanx and sausagelike discomfort it is.)

I'm going for a wee book tour (there's no way of saying that without sounding pretentious. I've tried. I try to say "going to do some TV shows", "going for some media stuff", but people always figure it out and think I'm some sort of glitteratti). So yeah, I'm going to be on Canada AM on Monday. I sliced a nice thick slab of flesh from my ring finger this afternoon after breaking one of my favorite mason jars - the soggy, flayed band-aid will be a lovely accessory for camera close ups of my hands that you can't really avoid when doing a cooking show. It will perfectly accent the giant brownish purple IV bruise I have on the back of my other hand. And the welt over my eye - which will likely be camoflaged by dramatic eyeshadow anyway - that was a result of me opening the front door with far too much enthusiasm upon seeing our neighbors on the doorstep with their new 5 day old baby, and smashing it straight into my face. It hurts to blink. I typically maim myself or break out just before a TV show.

I'm looking forward to getting some time alone with my laptop - ever since W has discovered that you can play Bugs Bunny movies on them, he thinks that is its exclusive purpose in life, and won't let me alone when I'm on it. Knowing the retrospective effect flying has on me, I'm anticipating a cathartic few days of blog postings from my hotel room!

Numbers on the scale are larger than they appear.

2008-01-31T00:57:00.000-07:00

(Sometimes.)

Since last night I've checked my blog stats about five hundred times, and each time triggered minor panic attacks over the fact that I a) have posted my weight for the world to see, b) announced my medical results, and c) told everyone about my very junior high school crying episode in the bathroom stall. Could my judgement have been impaired, since I was still dopey enough to be unauthorized to ride horses or operate chain saws and food processors? I mean, isn't that why I found a bathroom down an isolated hallway - so that no one would hear me scream? (No, I didn't actually scream, but I can't help the Alien reference.) Then I go ahead and announce it to hundreds of people. I suppose the reason I didn't keep it to myself is because I want people to know there's more to it, there are lasting effects you might not consider. There are such bigger reasons to lose weight than the upcoming swimsuit season or a need to look hot in that bridesmaid dress, although I fully understand that those things can be a big deal, and it's nice to not feel like a sausage encased in taffeta when you're having photos taken that will inhabit someone's mantle for decades.

I suppose if we're going to talk numbers, I should discuss the scale that has lately taken up residence in a corner of my office. (Bathroom real estate is far too valuable.) My earliest memory of weighing myself and the pressures associated with said scale was when I was 8 or 10 and a new member of Weight Watchers. (With my Mom, even though she didn't really have a weight problem; she made me feel like I was there to support her. She's fantastic.) My brain chooses to retain an interesting assortment of memories, one being the bathroom lineups at Weight Watchers as part of our pre-weigh-in ritual - it was a cardinal rule (self-imposed by us attendees) to pee as much as possible immediately before weighing in, and not drink anything. (I don't tell this story to criticize the organization, but merely use it as a telling example of human behavior in the presence of scales and witnesses). Running straight from the loo to the weigh station, women would peel off any excess clothing, pull off their rings, I'm sure they clipped their toenails before they came - anything to coax that dial down a little further.

More recently, my sister attended meetings of another weight loss group that shall remain nameless (I know they are independantly run and don't want to suggest the entire organization thinks this way), where the leader of the group instructed all members to not eat all day on weigh-in days; they could then leave the weekly meeting and gorge on as much dinner as they wanted. Not surprisingly, only one member had earned her I-lost-10-pounds badge of honor, although the rest of the group had been gathering for years.

My point is, people go to great lengths to see the numbers on the scale drop, when often the outcome isn't real. Case in point: on Monday, toward the end of my 24 hour famine, I stepped on the scale and it sat at just under 200 - 4 pounds less than when I started. Did I look any different? I did not. Did my clothes hang more loosely? They did not. You'd think losing 4 pounds would have been a massive, glittery, silver and gold lining to the whole not eating experience, but obviously I hadn't burned fourteen thousand calories in one day, and so I knew the drop was more likely due to my general internal housecleaning, and possibly some dehydration.

So last night I weighed myself again, and then again first thing this morning because I know I always weigh more in the evenings than in the mornings. 205-206. Does this mean in the past 24 hours I ate 17,500-21,000 calories (over a weeks' worth) more than I burned? I'm pretty sure I'd remember that. No, I ate spaghetti and meatballs for dinner and a couple post-fast snacks. But they did rehydrate me through the IV, and even just getting back to normal can be enough to recalibrate things.

The moral of the story: the numbers on the scale aren't always as they appear. If it seems too good to be true, it probably is. I'm sure there are many more applicable cliches. That said, weight does tend to drop of quickly at first, and then even out. More on that later, I'm still trying to figure out how to set up this forum. And oh yes, I have a date with bed.

I have survived.

2008-01-28T20:41:00.000-07:00

Obviously. And everything is OK, more or less. Thanks for all the good vibes. The pamphlet they sent me home with specifically instructs that because of the meds, even now I should not ride a horse or operate a food processor.

The last 36 hours was an interesting crash-course in the evolution and physical and psychosomatic effects of true hunger. By around noon the second day my body conceded defeat and backed off, having done everything in its power to alert me to the urgency of the situation. It finally relented, perhaps accepting that the absence of food was beyond my control. Starvation mode, I think this has been referred to. I could actually feel myself gear down and start running at a lower rpm (not to mention a lower IQ).

The funny thing is, all day long I distracted myself with fantasies about what I'd eat as soon as I was allowed to. Friends and nurses kept saying "feast tonight!" as if I had absolute free reign to make up for 24 hours of lost time in one giant evening-long eat-o-rama. But really, what's the point? I figured no matter what I ate, it was going to taste like the most fantastic thing I ever put in my mouth, so I might as well choose something delicious and healthy and reasonably portioned (which will seem like a feast anyway in comparison to my steady stream of apple juice and tea) instead of gorging myself on pizza or butter chicken and garlic naan. After the test, they brought me a stale blueberry muffin. It wasn't as earth-shattering as I thought it would be, considering my tres-bon appetit.

Without going into detail, I will reveal that they did discover some problems - nothing too grievous or life-threatening - the condition is very typical, in fact. For seniors, that is. To make things worse, the degree of severity was slightly above average for a 75 year old. Because I'm only halfway to 75 (there's some scary math I hadn't calculated until just this minute) it was likely caused by my excessive weight, the doctor surmised.

I nodded and left, free to go downstairs to the Good Earth and buy myself an extra-large latte and a cinnamon bun the size of my head. But I lost the urge to. After more than a day without food, I didn't want to eat. I was sad and angry, at myself and at Food. Instead I found a bathroom down an obscure hallway and sat in a stall and sobbed until my dad came to pick me up.

Really, I should be happy that things turned out OK. And I really am grateful. But learning about internal damage I've done to myself is devastating. It never occurred to me that once I lost weight there would be any lingering evidence of my previous self, but it quickly became apparent that no matter what I do, or how hard I work out, or how much weight I lose, I'll never physically be the same. But the same as what? I had always been overweight, so there really never was an ideal version of myself to work my way back to. Most of the ill effects are aesthetic, but things surface once in awhile, reminding me that it's something I'll never truly leave behind.

Tomorrow I'll feel better. I can't deny feeling this way, or explain it away or push it out of reach simply because we should all strive toward the happy end of the emotional spectrum all the time. I think all emotions are worthwhile, in the right time and space. Sometimes you just need to be sad for a bit, until you aren't anymore.

* * *

P.S. I really am working on setting up some sort of forum here. It appears the phpBB software I want to use (and there could be others, but this is what 101 Cookbooks uses, and I think she's fantastic) can only be used with a hosted domain. So I think my only option is to set up a mirror site - one that has the exact same content as this, at http://www.juliewashere.com/ and/or http://www.itmusthavebeensomethingiate.com/ (too long? the toolbar remembers it anyway...), that way I can set up the forum, and simply add a link from this page. Phew! At least all these library books are coming in handy...

Hungry.

2008-01-28T09:47:00.000-07:00

I was so busy patting myself on the back for making it through yesterday afternoon and evening, that I forgot about having to make it through until this afternoon.

A few thoughts on hunger:

it's humbling to think how many people in the world experience this sensation on a daily basis, and how many of them are children.
it's interesting that - for me, anyway - sleeping takes the edge off. I woke up in the early hours, when Willem crawled into bed with me feverish and crying over a bad dream, and I forgot at first that I hadn't eaten. My stomach felt no different than on any normal night. I figured this out back when I was losing weight, and would often just go to bed out of desperation- when I wanted to eat so badly I couldn't focus my attention on anything else, I'd have a nap. It seemed luxurious, and when I woke up the cravings had died down and I wasn't as hungry anymore. (Note: this effect did wear off as I lay in bed with insomnia until 7 in the morning.)
People always talk about hunger as it relates to dieting; as in: 'you'll never be hungry!', but there is a HUGE difference between hunger and cravings that many people don't understand. For me, actual hunger usually has little to do with it. I rarely used to let myself get to the point of feeling true hunger. I feared it, as if there was some chance I might starve to death. But it's the combination of hunger and cravings that's particularly difficult to fend off. More on that later.
I could write a whole post on hunger, and I'm sure I will once my brain is firing on all pistons. But here's the thing: we go through life knowing hunger as an empty, knawing, awful feeling because we're hard-wired to do so. We are supposed to want to eat when we get hungry, because it's our body's way of letting us know the tank has run dry. But what that feeling really signifies is our bodies burning the stash of on-board fuel we so badly want to unload. So really, it should be a feeling we associate with progress. If you can start to change the way you think about hunger pangs, it can make things easier.

Mike is making toast and coffee, and it smells so good I can't think.

It's -34 outside!

I'm not allowed to eat for 24 hours.

2008-01-27T18:08:00.001-07:00

Me! Go without food for an entire day and night! I was planning to avoid letting the world know this, but ultimately it's going to come up on Dinner with Julie, and really, 24 hours without food is an interesting experiment for me, and will undoubtedly have some affect on my current attempt to begin losing weight again. So yes, I have to have a minor and probably unpleasant test done tomorrow, but the worst part is not being allowed to eat in preparation for it. Interesting though, that when a doctor tells you you have to do something, you just do it.

Fasting for 24 hours (except for clear liquids, which don't really count since you can't fill yourself up on lemonade and tea) is something I don't think I've ever done in my life. I did attempt the Wild Rose cleanse one day in my 20s, and thought I might chew my arm off by dinnertime the first day, at which point my Dad saw the literature on the kitchen counter and forbade me to continue. (My Dad is a gastroenterologist. I won't get into the reasons he was/is so against this, because I know a lot of people believe very strongly in their cleanses.) My Dad has never forbidden me to do anything, except go on a free tour of an abandoned church offered by a perfectly nice Italian guy when I was 15 and touring Italy with my family. I protested a little less strongly over the cleanse. Lets face it, cleaning of any sort has never been my forte.

My stomach is finished with the niceties and is growling at me so loudly I can hear it. Willem, who is lounging against my nice soft tummy watching Ratatouille (let me tell you, cartoon food is looking mighty appealing), treating it like his own personal heated bean bag chair, lifted his head, pointed at my gut and said "tiger! tiger!"

Fortunately it's Sunday, so I can get away with lounging around with books and my laptop in bed all day, drinking Belgian chocolate roiboos and Coke (not at the same time) and not risk burning myself out. I'm amazed that I've made it to dinnertime without going completely mad with hunger. I am feeling a little punchy though. And even more grumpy. But when I stop complaining and think about it, I do feel better than I did after coming home from Ben's birthday party the other night.

(Still hovering around 204.)

I am the walrus.

2008-01-26T20:58:00.000-07:00

I hate this feeling.
Why can I not learn to associate this feeling of glum, glutted, disdainful regret with food that's high in everything bad for me, instead of the sensational drug-like rush that lasts only a few minutes, and is over as soon as I'm finished? Then all I'm left with is the memory, which I have stockpiles of filed away already. I do remember how badly I wanted to eat all that stuff, and it did appease the cravings, but they'll be back, and in greater numbers so long as I keep feeding them.
I hate remorse. Guilt is a terrible motivator.
Remember this feeling.

I wrote that last night, after coming home from my nephew's fifth birthday party feeling altogether too much like a beached walrus; a consequence of tearing off too many hunks of that sourdough bread bowl full of creamy spinach dip, immoderate mouthfuls of even creamier Asiago-artichoke dip (again with chunks of fresh, soft white bread used for transport), and an eclectic assortment of nibbles: chicken wings, cheesies, 7-layer dip, Willem's pizza crusts, a few fingerfuls of hot fudge sauce.

Mike felt the same way. As soon as we got into the car, he turned to me and said, "wow, I don't feel good. What is wrong with the planet when things like cheesies taste so much better than carrots?"

Of course this scenario could have been simply avoided. I said simply, not easily: could I have stuck to the watermelon wedges and just not eaten the Cheetos, or the dip, or anything else placed on the coffee table in front of me that was unreasonably high in fat and calories? Of course. The problem, beyond the obvious fact that they taste so good, is I've become really good at rationalizing and talking myself out of it. There's always that desperate belief that if I get it out of my system tonight, it will be easier to start tomorrow. And what's a few hours anyway, when you're staring down a 40 pound road? When I had well over 100 pounds to lose, this same attitude helped me pile on even more in a futile attempt to 'get it out of my system'. My 'I'll start tomorrow' habit started when I was a teenager; I remember coming back from 7-11 with a bagful of Oh! Henrys and telling my sister, who was as preoccupied with her boyfriend as I was with chocolate bars, that I might as well do it up right tonight, because as of tomorrow there will be no more. You can pile on a lot of weight when you fully expect every new day to miraculously bring about absolute change.

(Hint: it doesn't make it easier, it makes it harder.) Like any other addiction, the more junk I eat, the more I want. The more mercilessly my body begs for it.

I know it's not all or nothing. I know this. I know just because I start in on the crock pot of chicken wings that I don't have to then work my way to the bottom. I know if I do eat some cheesies, I haven't "ruined my diet" or "broken my resolution" and might as well scrap the whole thing. I also know that if there are 20 items at a party or buffet, I am not required to sample them all, even for research purposes.

It's what you do most of the time that counts, not once in awhile. It's better to inch a little down that road, moving in the right direction and familiarizing yourself with the terrain, than to backpedal, making it necessary to work your way back to where you would have otherwise started from.

(You should probably get used to the metaphors now - they are difficult to avoid entirely in this sort of conversation.)

P.S. I really liked Pat's suggestion to start a sort of online community (is there a better term to use than support group?) Really, that's what friends do, and it isn't as lonely when you know you have someone else to talk to in the same boat. The problem is, I don't think the software can be used with this type of blog, so I may have to switch to a new domain, but I'm hesitant to do that too...

Danone US arm sued over probiotic ads

2008-01-25T15:05:00.000-07:00

Hey, remember our conversation about gut flora?

24 January 2008 Source: just-food.com

To quote a few highlights from the article: Danone's US subsidiary has been hit with a lawsuit that claims the company of using false advertising to promote its probiotic yogurt in the country.

The suit against The Dannon Co was filed yesterday (23 January) in California, accuses the company of convincing consumers to pay more for the yogurt because of its assumed health benefits.

The lawsuit said Dannon's own studies failed to support its advertised claims that its Activia, Activia Lite and DanActive were 'clinically' and 'scientifically proven' to have health benefits that other yoghurts did not.

The lawsuit cited scientific reports showing there was no conclusive evidence that the bacteria prevented illness or was beneficial to healthy adults, and that Dannon knew this.

In the last year, General Mills has also launched probiotic products and Yakult is being rolled out into the US mainstream for the first time. Officials at Dannon could not be reached for comment.

For the full story, visit http://www.just-food.com/.

Time for Health Check to check out.

2008-01-24T20:03:00.001-07:00

You really can't blame consumers for being so confused about what's healthy and what's not, when even those we consider experts lead us so far astray. Those of you who read Yoni's blog - Weighty Matters - have likely noticed his comparison of it to the Hindenburg. The Health Check program, based on Canada's Food Guide, was introduced 1999, designed to help consumers identify healthy grocery items and restaurant selections. I won't even begin to sum up the reasons it's lacking, except maybe to say they classify cookies as grains.

They did a story on CBC's Marketplace last night - you can watch the video here. There was also a story in the Ottawa Citizen.

Kudos, Yoni, on your efforts.

206

2008-01-22T01:00:00.000-07:00

So
tired.
I did make it through the day without any hate mail though, so that's something.
Unfortunately I'm not sleeping now because the last loaf of bread is still baking, the one I need for CBC tomorrow morning - or should I say in a few hours? After which I jump in the car and go do a few cooking segments at Help!TV, which, regrettably, is in Edmonton. (That's 2 1/2-3 hours away, depending who's driving.)

Perhaps more regrettably, the Board of Trustees meeting for the Calgary Board of Education is at 5pm tomorrow back in downtown Calgary, so it's going to be a crunch to make it back here in time to speak to the board, something I requested in order to argue for a better nutrition policy, meaning I won't have the option open to pull over for a quick nap if need be. (I have special nap spots along the way.)

I wish it wasn't such a boring drive.

(And yes, 206 is what the scale I hauled out and dusted off is telling me today, not the number of the Calgary-Edmonton highway. I know I promised to fess up; I figure I'm punchy enough to put it out there and stop procrastinating about it already.)

Just another manic Monday.

2008-01-21T00:13:00.000-07:00

I'm avoiding going to bed tonight for the same reason I hit the sheets the second the sun started to go down on Christmas Eve when I was a kid - because the sooner I go to sleep, the sooner it will be tomorrow.

I shouldn't complain. I understand that not many people enjoy Monday mornings, and most of them have much more stressful jobs than me. But tomorrow a Global TV camera crew is coming to tape me telling all of Calgary why I think the CBE nutrition policy isn't good enough, and then I have to go and teach a cooking class for 30 people, which means cook dinner 4 times for all of them while they sit and watch how disorganized I am, all of whom shelled out $80 perfectly good dollars to be there. Teaching classes is not my favorite part of the job - after spending the day feeling like a rhino is standing on my chest, I constantly and fully expect someone to stand up and go, wait a minute! That's just Julie! What does she know? (I should be extra flighty tonight, knowing that the class is occurring in conjunction with the airing of the aforementioned news story.) Then when I see them pass around the evaluation sheets after class, I want to throw up.

I remember when I was little my Dad telling me that not everyone will like me. I'm not sure what brought this topic up, but I was horrified. It was the worst possible news anyone could have given me at that time, besides perhaps that I was allergic to butter and chocolate, or that they were going to stop making cheese forever.

"Why wouldn't they like me?" I asked him, totally beside myself. I didn't do anything wrong! I'm a nice person! "That's just the way it is," he said, "you can't be the way everyone wants you to be." But you can try, dammit. So for the next 20 years I walked through life wondering of each person if they were the kind my Dad warned me about. You can drive yourself crazy that way, you know.

How I spent my Saturday.

2008-01-19T11:46:00.000-07:00

This weekend is already more constructive than last. (You may have read about how I spent hours making shirts and other paraphenalia with NO plastered on them. I must fess up though, in regards to this issue: for the most part, I love that people ask me if I'm interested in doing things, that I actually get the opportunity to take on writing assignments and TV shows and such, and I'm really very happy to volunteer my time for worthy causes. Mostly it's me coming up with projects and ideas, and pitching them to other people, who then say yes, which is really the point of my proposals in the first place. So it's my fault, and I shouldn't blame external forces. I still like the shirts though - talk about a great gift idea for teenage girls!)

So last night and today I have finally managed to customize my new website -Dinner with Julie (thanks for the name idea Jolene! email me and I'll send you a cookbook. I don't want to presume your first choice might be one of mine - I do have hundreds on my bookshelf I'm willing to part with if you have any other requests.) It's a sort of kitchen diary - a reality cookbook, because in reality people don't use cookbooks to come up with dinner every day of the week, and sometimes just a quick new idea or use for existing product is as helpful as a new recipe. And really, I think these days people use the internet as a cooking reference as often as they refer to cookbooks. Let me know what you think - I'm still working out the bugs.

Welcome to your life, there’s no turning back.

2008-01-15T23:57:00.000-07:00

Yes, that's an eighties music quote. I watched Medium last night. I wonder what those flashbacks to 1987 will do for Tears for Fears’ album sales? (Tears for Fears will always have albums. A Tears for Fears CD just doesn’t sound right.)

So that one line has been reiterating itself over and over in my head all day long and yet has not become the least bit annoying. At the risk of sounding utterly spoiled, my parents took us to Europe when I was 15; a trip I think built more character in them than us (I recall arguing with my dad over why I couldn’t go with that nice Italian guy who wanted to take me on a free tour of some old churches?), and since no one had yet even dreamt up the MP3 player, I had Songs from the Big Chair in my (monstrous) Walkman when we went up the Eiffel Tower. It was one of those moments so deeply branded onto my psyche that I don’t own the songs for fear of diluting the memories they are so tightly connected to. If I think too long or hard, they start to lose their clarity. My Eiffel Tower memory is one of the ones I save for special occasions. It reminds me so strongly of a feeling I couldn't even identify yet, and still rarely manage to.

(And did you know the tower is brown? And has a dreamy security guard working at the bottom?)

I couldn’t broach the subject of weight loss without a sufficiently cheesy line anyway. Oprah had one of her weight loss shows yesterday – a Best Life show, and Bob Greene and his big green bus was of course by her side – but nonetheless, her guests were touching and real and reminded me that I do have a lot to say. Is it possible to have too much to say? So much that I don’t know where to start, and so end up reorganizing the basement instead? I was shocked at the commercial for “lap bands” – the new safe-and-mainstream-sounding term for stomach stapling surgery, now referred to as “obesity surgery”, as if it was the only option for those who are overweight. It doesn’t help that the term “obese” is applied to anyone 20% or more above their ideal weight – that means for someone whose ideal is 150 pounds, if they are 30 pounds overweight, they can be classified as obese.

And of course it made me think of the January 26th I was asked to come be on Oprah. How different might by life be if I had gone to Chicago to be on Oprah? If Mike hadn’t hopped on that bus to Jasper two months before? But yes, I suppose then Willem wouldn't exist. So I’d be well rested, have the ability to freely move about public places and leisurely eat out at restaurants, and have been on Oprah? I’d better stop thinking about this.

Weight loss stories on Oprah today

2008-01-14T15:34:00.000-07:00

It's an inspiring one, if you can catch it.

How I spent my weekend.

2008-01-13T21:07:00.000-07:00

Before Christmas I joked with one of my editors about how I was going to get a T-shirt made that said NO in big letters across the front. She thought it was the best idea ever.

Perhaps it was because I had already had that discussion that I noticed everyone thereafter seemed to be talking about their inability to say no. My good friend Meg made me a mug for Christmas with NO handwritten all over it in dishwasher-safe marker. I had many conversations with a wide variety of people that went something like this:

Them: "I/You need to learn how to say no."
Me: "Totally! (I say this too much.) I'm getting T-shirts made that say NO across the front."
Them: "That's brilliant! I/my sister/my Mom/my staff need one! I could buy them for everyone on my Christmas list!"

So I half thought I'd take care of a big chunk of my Christmas list the same way. I emailed a T-shirt silkscreening place but they never emailed back. Maybe they said yes one too many times, too. Then this weekend I stumbled upon this new thing called CafePress, which it appears I was the only one on the planet not yet aware of, in one of the books on proper blogging I checked out of the library. On it you can upload anything you want and put it onto a variety of cotton T-shirts and about half a million other products. Then, afterward, other people can buy them too if they want.

Hey, here's an idea! Start a blog, rarely keep up with it despite your best intentions to, whine regularly about your time management skills (or lack thereof), then spend hours creating an online store that carries T-shirts, mugs and stuff that say NO on them. (Even though you have 2 articles due, two books to edit and 3 classes to plan and submit recipes for, not to mention those blogs that need redesigning and a slew of unanswered emails. Then there's the matter of that 2 year old boy running around...) Is that the definition of irony? Maybe not quite, but still more ironic than rain on your wedding day.

(So yes, in the obsessive-compulsive style of Jack in The Shining, this is how I spent a chunk of my weekend procrastinating from my real work. It was a good lesson in website building, actually.)

2008-01-09T10:07:00.000-07:00

Today I am home with a sick, snotty, hacking 2 year old, and my goal is to finally create a better blog. I still haven't managed to figure out how everyone customizes their blogspot blogs to make them so pretty (my new favorite: www.poppytalk.blogspot.com - and it's Canadian!) so I'm making the leap to WordPress. My plan is to turn this site into a better resource for people concerned with eating healthier and/or losing weight (in which case eating healthier would likely apply), and start documenting my own mission to lose 40 pounds (or 50? I'll decide when I get closer where I want to stay, like going on a road trip). I even dragged my scale out from the depths of the garage. I do have some scale issues, but when your goal is to lose pounds, it is a valuable tool. More later, I need to take advantage of W's valuable napping time.

Reaching Critical Mass

2008-01-05T12:04:00.001-07:00

The anvil that dropped directly into the pit of my stomach upon hearing a phone message yesterday from a photographer needing to shoot a portrait of me for Avenue magazine was not the first indication that I need to stop procrastinating and get myself back into shape already. (Was that a run-on sentence?) The truth is I've been uncomfortable in my skin (not to mention my clothes, which more often than not make me feel sausagelike) for awhile - since we wrapped up taping the TV show back in May, during which I spent 2 weeks double-bagging it in my Spanx.

You may recall, oh best beloved, the first day of taping was also the first day I took the cast off my foot, after breaking it at a particularly successful fundraiser. When I didn't have the option of even walking particularly well, I was dying to start running again. Of course instead of actually doing that the day after we wrapped, I kind of burned out and hit a wall. Then it was summer, and who can exercise in that heat? July's Stampede fried-food-a-thon revved up my appetite for all things deep fried and/or high in fat and sugar, 2 weeks from which I'm sure I haven't yet recovered from.

I'm not rehashing all this to make excuses, but more to look back from a position of clarity at what happened, and what habits I fell into that worked against me. I think during 2007 I ate mostly out of enjoyment and fatigue. Enjoyment, in an attempt to feel like I was getting some sort of vacation while everyone took off for 2 weeks at the cottage or jetted to Mexico for a little R&R. (Last time I took some time off was when I was immobilized by a wrecked back when W was 4 or 5 months old. Does it count as time off when you're attached to a pump for half the day? I'm a little ashamed to admit that I learned to breastfeed while typing at the computer, sometimes stashed W in an open desk drawer while I worked, and did a phone interview when he was 4 days old.) Not that I'm complaining. Wait, I guess I am.

I've also developed the bad habit of eating in response to fatigue, because I haven't learned yet that food does not necessarily bolster energy, and often robs you of it. I always think a snack is going to wake me up, when a nap would usually be more effective (and probably at least as enjoyable, when I think about it.) In recent months I've had this who-cares-life-is-short-and-it-so-doesn't-matter-in-the-big-scheme-of-things attitude, which doesn't really help either when in the end you feel like crap.

I have resisted jumping on the New Year's Resolution bandwagon because I associate it with too many dismal Januarys trying to rigidly conform to them. And besides, I sort of resent the concept. The barrage of 'New Year, New You!' promos suggests that whatever we've been doing isn't good enough, that there's always room for vast improvement. I mean, if last year's resolutions stuck, why do I need a whole new me now? The concept also reeks of that 'I'll start tomorrow' crutch, and the 'all or nothing' idea that we have to hang on to our resolutions for dear life for as long as we can, because once they are broken, it's all over.

That said, it is a new year, and people do tend to set goals for themselves, and I'm no exception. It's like every fall, I can't shake that back-to-school feeling and want to organize my room and my office and get all new pencils and clean reams of paper. For now, the party season has passed, making it easier to not overeat. And most of us are stuck with higher than usual credit card bills, so eating out is not as common an activity. And hey, if January 1 is what it takes to make people eat healthier and live better, who am I to argue?

It's (sometimes) easy being green...

2008-01-04T15:56:00.000-07:00

I just finished watching Oprah - a great show on how best to go green - on which they said that milk cartons are unrecyclable. Twice, so I know we both heard them correctly. I'm not sure I understand this... apparently they are recyclable, at least in Alberta, and it seems from a brief internet search they are recycled elsewhere too. Now that I know what a great resource this blog is when I need opinions or questions answered, can anyone shine any light on this subject? It would be terrible if all North American viewers of Oprah stopped recycling their milk containers! It was the waxy cardboard ones they referred to, not the jugs.

As an aside.. it's fantastic that Americans are going green, changing to energy efficient light bulbs, buying power bars, switching from SUVs to hybrids, and not taking their ATM receipts. Meanwhile, I wonder what the environmental impact of the US war in Iraq is? (That of course all Americans are not in support of!)

OK, how about this:

2008-01-04T12:20:00.000-07:00

Dinner with Julie
(A Year in My Kitchen)

Thanks for all your help! And sorry to be neglectful... the problem with launching another site is that you then have half as much time to keep up with your first one.

My mom just arrived, and we are heading over to the farmer's market for some much-needed vegetables. Pop over to Yoni's blog to watch Marilyn Manson's take on the US Food Pyramid (seriously - he used to be a journalist!)

Wow, great suggestions!

2008-01-02T14:25:00.001-07:00

It was fun to be working away on my computer last night and have new email messages intermittently pop up whenever someone had an idea for me.

So far my favorite is www.dinnerwithjulie.com - and it's available! A couple suggestions were ones I had already thought of, which were taken. I also thought of a new one, which is also available - www.ayearinmykitchen.com. It doesn't necessarily have to have Julie in the title - it does make it more likely that the domain is available though.

So for me, it's down to those two. Votes?

Happy New Year!

2008-01-01T15:15:00.001-07:00

I can't honestly believe an entire week has passed since Christmas. Today is the last day of our official festivities; a birthday dinner for my brother-in-law, Rory, and 2 year old nephew, Hugo. Just so long as it's not turkey.

I just came across image this a few weeks ago while searching for appropriate photos from the past year for one of those custom calendars for my Mom-in-law. Even though it's from June, it seemed to most appropriately sum up my feelings about the coming year. He's ever so slightly squatted, poised to jump at a bubble. That's a bubble machine behind him, in case you can't tell, spraying out tempting bubbles in every direction. He wants to make a leap for all of them. Just like his mum.

So remember a year ago - OK, more like a year and a half ago - I "threw my hat over the fence" (a phrase my Grandad liked to use - the idea being that if you throw your hat over the fence, you are then forced to climb over the fence to pick it up) by saying I was going to launch a new website called Julie Does Dinner, that would be a sort of reality cookbook for those looking for meal ideas, recipes, product info and the like? I decided a few days ago, while trying to sort out what projects and ideas to pursue and which to jettison in the coming year, that I would Just Do It. And January 1st, of course, would be the ideal launch date. I got all pumped about it, bought a couple web design books and filed away a bunch of ideas. Today, I sit down at the computer to configure the website, make my first entry and get going on the design (I figure it can be a work in progress for the first week, as I post) and discover that my domain - http://www.juliedoesdinner.com/ - expired in late November, around the same time I was in Vancouver with Rachael, and is now owned by WhoIs.com. Gah!

But I still want to do it. But it was such a perfect domain! I can't think of another as appropriate. Anyone? The concept is this: people keep asking me for a "dinners" or "real meals" cookbook, which, frankly, is uninspiring. And besides, who cooks from a cookbook every day of the week? I thought a real documentation of what I actually cook from day to day might be much more useful, and realistic for other home cooks. After all, most nights it's a matter of pulling something from the fridge before it wilts/goes off, or doctoring up leftovers, or trying to find something easy and prepackaged that isn't crap. It's the same scenario whether you're a food writer or not.

So in the meantime, I'm starting today at http://www.juliedoesdinner.blogspot.com/. But I'd really like to have a real domain by next week. Any suggestions? Hey, why don't we hold a contest? Winning idea gets a cookbook. (Or the oak toilet seat with brass trim we "won" at a White Elephant Christmas party? Free to good home!)

She's crafty. (Kind of.)

2007-12-28T14:55:00.001-07:00

Every year after the Christmas crush I sort of hit a wall and require some down time. That's the biggest problem with working for yourself, from the spare bedroom - there's always, always, always something you should be working on. Not that I'm complaining.

So I kind of have to force myself off the computer and try to take my mind off the swirling, churning mess of thoughts and ideas and projects and writing and research that typically occupies my brain, pushing me to a near-constant state of near-panic that amplifies at around 4 am every night. So this week, I'm watching the 3rd season of the Office (Santa brought me) and making stupid sock creatures. Lame as it may sound, right now this combination of a creative outlet paired with mindless comedic relief is my idea of heaven. I just wish there wasn't so much chocolate in the house - Lindt truffles, Toblerone, Zero milk chocolate bars, chocolate almonds - while my defenses are down.

Two Christmasses ago my Mom bought me a book on how to make Stupid Sock Creatures. I had always wanted to make my own sock monkeys (until I found a family of them, complete with outfits, at a garage sale for $1 each) but these are way better. So the year Willem was a few months old I made a few of them - the first a navy striped guy named Trevor, for my Mom, a white and red argyle dude I called Hamish for Rachael in Vancouver (he was still on her bed when I was out there last month) and a third for Mike that didn't really turn out very well, started to unravel and so has yet to be named.

It turns out the guy who wrote it has his own website, with a gallery where you can order hand made creatures yourself. But I strongly recommend buying the book and making use out of all your stray socks.

Banana Cream Pie for Ralph

2007-12-27T23:12:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow morning (the alarm goes off in 6 hours) I'll be on Breakfast TV, and in honor of Ralph Klein's co-hosting spot (while Dave is on vacation), we're making Banana Cream Pie.

If you want to reduce the fat even further (many recipes call for whipping cream in the custard as well) you can use 2% milk, but whisk it diligently - the lower the fat content, the higher the risk of milk separating as it boils. You could probably omit the tablespoon of butter at the end too - I already cut it in half.

This custard is a good basic recipe no matter what kind of pie or pudding you want to make: add 1/2 cup cocoa to the sugar-cornstarch mixture for chocolate cream pie, or use coconut milk and coconut extract for coconut cream pie.

Crust:
1 1/2 cups chocolate cookie crumbs or graham cracker crumbs
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup mashed banana
1/4 cup butter, melted, or canola oil

Filling:
1/2 cup sugar
1/3 cup cornstarch
1/4 tsp. salt
3 cups whole milk, 2%, half & half or egg nog
3 large egg yolks
1 Tbsp. butter
1 tsp. vanilla
4 ripe bananas, peeled and sliced
1 cup whipping cream, whipped with 1 Tbsp. sugar or maple syrup (optional)

Preheat oven to 350°F. Combine cookie crumbs, sugar, mashed banana and melted butter; press onto bottom and up sides of a glass pie dish. Chill until firm, then bake until set and pale golden, about 15 minutes. Cool completely.

To make the filling, whisk together the sugar, cornstarch, and salt in a medium saucepan. Whisk in the milk, then egg yolks. Set over medium-high heat and cook, whisking almost constantly, until the custard thickens and boils. Remove from heat and whisk in the butter and vanilla. Cool completely, whisking occasionally to prevent lumps. Cover the surface with a piece of plastic wrap to prevent "pudding skin".

Stir the custard and spread about a cup of it over bottom of the crust. Top with half of sliced bananas, then another cup of custard, covering bananas completely. Repeat layering with remaining bananas and custard. Chill banana cream pie until filling is set, at least 8 hours and up to 1 day. Slather with whipped cream (or not) and serve.

Visions of vitamins danced in their heads...

2007-12-21T14:38:00.000-07:00

I am so excited about my sugar plum discovery this year. For some reason, I was always under the impression that they were dried plums (more unappealingly known as prunes) or dates, stuffed with a whole almond and rolled in sugar. I knew they were some sort of dried fruit confection. Turns out you can pulse any number of dried fruits to make a paste with cocoa and honey (the dried fruit provides sweetness and body, as well as nutrients and fiber) that is then rolled into balls, like a little truffle. They are obviously far better for you than a truffle, and will keep well. These are what we should be snacking on over the holiday season, rather than BBQ Bugles and Toffifee. Make them with almonds and almond extract, or toasted hazelnuts and vanilla, like I did last night.

Sugar Plums

10 dried figs
1/3 cup sliced or slivered almonds, toasted, or 1/2 cup toasted whole hazelnuts
3 Tbsp. unsweetened cocoa
1/4 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 cup honey (or less, if your fruit is nice and soft and sticky already)
1 tsp. (or more) grated orange zest
1/4 tsp. almond or vanilla extract
sugar, for rolling

Trim tough stems from figs and cut them in half. In a food processor, pulse the figs, almonds, cocoa, and cinnamon, until minced. Add the honey, orange zest and extract and pulse until well combined.

Place some sugar in a shallow dish. Roll the sugar plum mixture into bite-sized balls, then roll them in sugar to coat. If you like, place them in paper or aluminum candy cups, like truffles. (Sugar plums can be made up to a week ahead; store in an airtight container at room temperature, or in the fridge.)

There is a (Ms.) Santa Claus!

2007-12-20T17:16:00.001-07:00

I'm so proud of my sister. She's a grade 6 teacher, and along with her students she collected over 1500 articles for the homeless shelter, which she delivered about an hour ago, with City TV and CBC TV there to document it! So watch for her on the news tonight, distributing 60 backpacks loaded with sweaters, socks, mitts, hats and toiletries at the drop-in centre.

Boo.

2007-12-19T23:00:00.000-07:00

By now you've probably heard that Queen Latifah has signed on to be the latest celeb spokesperson for Jenny Craig, following in Kirstie Alley and Valerie Bertinelli's footsteps.

Jenny Craig's vice president of marketing said: "Queen Latifah joins forces with Jenny Craig to communicate the importance of how small lifestyle changes, in the areas of diet and exercise, can have positive effects on overall health."

Small lifestyle changes? like paying well over $100 a week for your Jenny Craig meals (not including fruit and veg)? I have a lifetime membership to Jenny Craig, and all it did was turn me off frozen dinners forever. 10 years ago it cost $110 per week for the food (to join was over $300), and I opted for the slightly less expensive (still $100 a week) vegetarian menu just to save money while I was at school. A $400 monthly food bill may not seem like a lot, but it didn't count milk, produce and extras. And really, how does someone in their early twenties maintain a social life while toting around frozen manicotti for lunch and dinner every day? I can't imagine having to cook for the family and then sit down to your little plastic dish. Kirstie says she cooks something similar for her kids so that she "feels like" she's eating the same thing.

Talk about taking all the Joy out of Cooking.

$3300!!

2007-12-18T18:59:00.000-07:00

This is how much I went for this morning, when we auctioned off a private cooking class for 10 for the CBC - Petro-Canada Food Drive for the Calgary Interfaith Food Bank. (Hopefully I'm just cooking, and not repairing a roof or anything.)

Thank you to everyone who bid!

2007-12-18T00:15:00.000-07:00

For those of you who still may be under the impression I lead some sort of glamorous life (like the lady I sat across from at my prenatal class, who recognized me from a TV segment and an article and exclaimed, "wow, you're just like Carrie Bradshaw!", and seriously, I was sitting there on a folding chair in a hospital basement 8 months pregnant, having just thrown up, again, probably on myself, with no makeup and in my sweatpants, because I was never one of those sylphlike pregnant women who look hot in a sarong, but instead looked like I was trying to steal a turkey. I cannot think of anyone less like Carrie Bradshaw, unless maybe you count our ages) last night I went to bed at 12:45 and Willem woke me up at 4, then barfed all over my head at 5, and I had to get up at 6:30 and attempt to make myself presentable for BT (I don't think it worked). It's now 12:23 and I have to be up at 6, but instead of sleeping I just finished pitting and chopping a vat of olives for a luncheon tomorrow and am trying to dig up a Stroopwafel recipe online for CBC in the morning, having finally given up looking for my copy, which was last seen in Willem's hands earlier this evening.

2 year old, anyone? He's a strapping lad, as tall as a kindergartener and not even 2 1/2. I'm sure he'd make a great farm hand...

A fruitcake to make with toddlers present

2007-12-16T21:41:00.000-07:00

In between Christmas parties and mochas and Guitar Hero at Kevin & Nicole's (SO much fun that I may have to go buy a Playstation 2) and a birthday dinner for my mother-in-law (pork tenderloin glazed with orange and pomegranate molasses: B-) I've spent this weekend baking fruitcake in every conceivable form in preparation for a fruitcake segment on BT tomorrow morning. If making fruitcake wasn't enough of an undertaking, doing it with a 2 year old "helper" is. At one point W disappeared, launching me into a time warp, during which I blew through almost an entire recipe (Guinness Cake) in under 10 minutes before conceding it was probably best to investigate the reason for his silence. I found him upstairs, tossing all my makeup and other bathroom objects out the window. Silver lining: when Mike went out to gather the pieces of my MAC compact, a variety of concealers, none of which really work (I have those purple-blue veins under my eyes that my friend Cynthia says looks "delicate" but have prompted more than one person, including my Dad, to ask where I got my black eye) and toothbrush, he also found my curry powder and smoked paprika.

Right now Nigella's Non-Cake Maker's Christmas Cake is baking - I love it for a few reasons: 1) it uses mincemeat, which I also love, and which is hardly used other than in mince tarts; 2) it's cheap (no 5 lbs of dried fruit and nuts required); and 3) no chopping. It also takes about 3 minutes to mix and pop in the oven, which is ideal when you have a 2 year old putting the ipod in the microwave and then pressing the buttons to see what will happen (seriously.)

Nigella’s Non-Cake Maker’s Christmas Cake (slight variation of)

½ cup soft butter (I'm sure you could get away with half this)
1 1/3 cups packed dark brown sugar
1 ¾ cups flour
2 tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. baking soda
¼ tsp. salt
zest of 1 lemon and 1 orange, or a big spoonful of marmalade
2 Tbsp. brandy or Grand Marnier
2 large eggs
1 ½ cups mincemeat (I always use all-fruit - no beef suet)
icing sugar, for dusting (or cream cheese frosting or fluffy white frosting)

Preheat the oven to 350F and grease well a 9” round cake pan with high sides. Springform pans work well, or you could line a shallow pan with parchment to raise the sides.

Pulse the butter and brown sugar in the food processor until well blended and no lumps remain. Add the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, lemon and orange zest, brandy and eggs and pulse just until combined. Add the mincemeat and pulse a few times again to incorporate them – you don’t want to do it too much or it could overwork the flour and/or puree the mincemeat too finely. A few chunks are good.

Scrape the batter into the pan and bake for 1- 1 ½ hours, until golden and springy to the touch. Cool completely in the pan on a wire rack.

Dust with icing sugar or frost with cream cheese or fluffy white frosting.

Help for holiday bakers

2007-12-12T08:10:00.000-07:00

December is unofficially baking month – the time of year when even those who never bake, do. The annual torrent of celebrations that revolve around food of such exorbitant richness, we only get a get-out-of-jail-free card once a year.

Some try to chip away at that holiday guilt by sticking to traditional recipes, but using products that contain less sugar, saturated fat and trans fat. Once January rolls around, most of us are eating better for reasons of health, resolutions, or simply to flush all that December excess out of our systems. All of which are good and noble pursuits, but often futile if you read the front of a package exclusively, and don’t back it up with information from the nutrition label.

A few examples, if I may, for those of you who are in the middle of your holiday baking:

Splenda Brown Sugar Blend is a blend of real brown sugar and Splenda, with a hefty price tag. If you actually read the package, you may notice that you only need to use half as much, unlike other versions of Splenda, which instruct you to use it cup for cup in place of actual sugar. This message doesn’t always get through though – people habitually use the same amount of sugar in their coffee and such, and the attitude with all kinds of low fat or low sugar products tends to be “it’s Splenda, so I can eat more of it!”

If you compare Splenda Brown Sugar Blend vs. regular brown sugar, you’ll find that they contain exactly the same amount of sugars and carbohydrates per teaspoon, but the Splenda blend has more calories. That’s right – Splenda Brown Sugar Blend has more calories than brown sugar. Which is why they tell you to use half as much – something you could do with regular sugar anyway. People think of it as a freebie, but in reality you’re actually consuming more calories even if you eat the exact same amount.

Lard has been known by generations of Grandmas to produce the flakiest, most ethereal of pie crusts. In recent years, we have shunned lard in favor of Crisco all-vegetable shortening, and more recently, non-hydrogenated Crisco and Tenderflake.

While shopping for pastry ingredients, I instinctively reached for the non-hydrogenated Tenderflake. It surprised me that old fashioned pure lard still lingered the shelf next to it, but I figured there must still be old-school bakers that insist on keeping the lard-makers in business. I grabbed a box, to compare the nutritional breakdown just out of curiosity.

The difference? Absolutely nothing. Tenderflake Non-hydrogenated lard: 4 g saturated fat and 0.1 g trans fat per serving. No Name pure lard: 4 g saturated fat and 0.1 g trans fat per (same) serving.

This could be due to the fact that no one produces real lard anymore, so companies like the Superstore that produce their own generic brands can’t get the old stuff co-packed, so they just take what has become the norm. (This is how it works: a company like the Superstore doesn’t have its own factories set up to manufacture everything from lard to film to diapers, so products are produced by companies that generate similar products already.) Which isn't to say that either is a particularly nutritious choice, but either way, it would appear we’re paying double to have the words “Non-Hydrogenated” splashed across the front of the box.

The moral of this story: read the back of the package, not the front.

Makes a great gift!

2007-12-10T10:33:00.000-07:00

Anyone in Calgary may have heard that we're right in the middle of the CBC/Petro-Canada Food Drive for the Calgary Inter-Faith Food Bank. I have been selling copies of both the new One Smart Cookie and Grazing both downtown at the Petro-Canada building and in the lobby at CBC just off Memorial Drive - with all the proceeds going to the food bank. So if you're looking for copies, now is a time to get them! Also available: John Gilchrist's book, and plenty of cool CDs.

And if you have time to spare for the food bank - they need help sorting and delivering all that food. Click here for more information.

2007-12-07T09:56:00.000-07:00

Remember that old dessert cookbook I mentioned? The one I bought at a garage sale, from 1964, with the 1979 anniversary announcement in it? I opened it again today, and found another clipping - often there are recipes clipped out and tucked into old cookbooks - for a carrot-raisin-nut cake. This one looks fantastic, actually, nutritionally ahead of its time, although stone-ground whole wheat flour was probably pretty typical in the 70s - I know my parents bought so much Bio Bread that I fantastized about Wonder bread.

I had all the stuff - even some stone-ground whole wheat flour from Highwood Crossing - so I made it. Canola oil instead of the corn, and dark Demerara sugar is what I suspect they meant by "Barbados" brown sugar. It's delicious.

In other sad news...

2007-12-05T10:28:00.001-07:00

James Barber died.

This photo is from a class I assisted him with at the Cookbook Company, in which he made pasta puttanesca, and described to the class the source of the name - it originated in Naples after the local prostitutes, Pasta alla Puttanesca meaning "pasta in the way a whore would make it".

After telling this story, James said, "so I'm going to call mine 'Pasta Julie'." ...wha....???

This is for you, James.

Linguine with Puttanesca Sauce (a very highly rated recipe from Epicurious.com)

1 lb beefsteak tomatoes, finely chopped
1/2 cup Kalamata olives, pitted and chopped
2 tablespoons drained bottled capers, chopped
1/3 cup chopped fresh basil
1/2 cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
4 anchovy fillets, patted dry and finely chopped
3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1/2 teaspoon dried hot red pepper flakes
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

1 lb dried linguine

Stir together all ingredients except linguine in a large bowl. Cook linguine al dente. Reserve 1 cup cooking water and drain in a colander. Add hot linguine and 1/3 cup pasta cooking water to sauce and toss to coat, adding more water if necessary. Season with salt and pepper.

25 Days

2007-12-03T12:04:00.000-07:00

I got an email today from my friend Dana, who passed on a link to a blog created by a 10 year old girl named Laura who has launched a project called Twenty Five Days to Make a Difference in memory of her Grandpa, who died of brain cancer. A timely subject, and a truly inspiring little girl.

As Dana puts it, "this is more a reminder of all the good that still exists in our world and how great the impact could be if each of us did our part to share the love and kindness that costs us nothing to give but brightens the world to those we share it with."

25 Days to Make a Difference.

2007-12-01T08:00:00.000-07:00

I pondered whether or not to post about Rachael last night, but after receiving so many kind emails from people who were sending good thoughts her way, I decided that it's really as much a toast to her as anything, if in a very new-millenium kind of format. I suppose my concern was that I was mentioning her death in the same sort of literary outlet in which people generally post about what they had for lunch that day. Then again, people print death announcements in newspapers, face to face with movie listings and classified ads. I suppose when someone goes, those who love them want to let the world know. I bought an old old cookbook this summer, and when I opened it a yellowed newspaper clipping fell out with a 50th wedding anniversary announcement on it. (Dated 1979 - they had been married in 1929.) The couple in the photo had, at the time, 18 children and 25 grandchildren, and are smiling so hard they look almost giddy. I use it now as a bookmark, and although I have absolutely no connection to these people, I'm somehow comforted and glad to know they exist.

I do want people to know what an incredible treasure the world lost yesterday. It seems impossible to me that we can't somehow capture her, the vast sparkling entity that is Rachael, and simply transport her from her sinking boat into a a new carrying case. Last night all I wanted to do was cry and sleep, but I couldn't cry, and I couldn't sleep. I thought I'd be inspired to write, that her death was going to jar open some sort of inner dam, gushing forth truth and clarity and peaceful contemplation. But all I was inspired to do was clean. I guess that's something.

I have been reading the India portion of Eat, Pray, Love, and realized that all this time, Rachael has been a sort of guru for me. Of course use of the word guru in Western civilization brings forth images of Ghandi and other robed spiritual leaders of the East we Westerners seek out in our search for enlightenment, or at least the image of enlightenment. The idea behind having a guru is that the merits of your guru will reveal to you your own hidden greatness. I have never heard a better definition of true friendship.

Weight loss stories on Oprah today!

2007-11-28T14:28:00.000-07:00

Including one story of a woman who dropped 530 pounds!
I'm curious to watch. They are featuring 24 men and women who lost weight without pills or surgery - I'm so glad people are figuring out that you don't need surgery to lose weight properly.

No, I'm not on it. I guess they lost my number.

Speaking of hospitals...

2007-11-26T22:29:00.001-07:00

I was happy to hear last week that the CBE (Calgary Board of Education) has changed its nutrition policy! I had heard they met in September (after the article in Swerve) but didn't know what came of it... apparently they have a new 80-20 policy that is to be implemented in January, and then schools have 3 years to carry it out. An improvement, it seems, but I'm curious to know more. I loved the news report footage of the school principal arguing that kids can buy junk elsewhere anyway, and they tend to throw garbage on people's lawns, so really they are doing the community a favor by providing pop, chips and chocolate bars in the schools so that kids don't have to leave...

The report they did on CBC showed a few vending machine close-ups - apparently the CHR has made similar changes in hospitals, banning junk food entirely from vending machines. It was interesting to see the "healthy" choices they showed included Special K bars, which contain gram for gram more sugar and less fiber than Famous Amos Chocolate Chip Cookies. Another close up was on their "lower calorie" options - those KitKat and Aero Singles, which I have been meaning to post about for some time. Sure, they are lower in calories than a bigger chocolate bar made up of the same ingredients. Does that make them healthy? Portion control is always a good idea, but the candy bar manufacturers must be laughing all the way to the bank - at 15-19 grams each, these "singles" are selling for as much as or more than regular-sized chocolate bars, which are typically around 50 grams each. The ones for sale in the vending machines they showed on TV were $1.25. Each! For a 19 gram bar! That's pricier than if you went and bought handmade chocolates from Bernard Callebeaut! Similarly, I saw the 6 packs in the grocery store the other day for $3.99 - for a total of 114 grams - that's like paying $2 for a regular Aero bar. Here's a tip: EAT HALF.

Looking for the cookie recipes from BT this morning?

2007-11-26T22:27:00.000-07:00

Email me and I'll send them to you!

Never underestimate the power of a cookie.

2007-11-22T05:03:00.000-07:00

I've spent most of my time since Sunday in the palliative care ward in Vancouver with Rachael - not a great place to be, although the nurses were fantastic and they have an extremely cool "round room" with almost 360 degree windows 16 stories high looking out over Vancouver, including a full view of the harbour, which was full of freighters that reminded me of the ones that used to pass my grandparents' house on the Detroit river. (When we saw one coming we'd run to get the binoculars from their dining room china shelf in order to identify the flag painted on the smokestack, comparing them to those in the flag guidebook stashed in the same cupboard.) It was a nice place, but the worst possible circumstances, in the mind of most humans anyway. I'm sure some would say it beats being set adrift on an iceberg.

On Tuesday, her husband came into the little sitting room where we all sat reminiscing, laughing, tearing up and distracting ourselves with sudoku and suggested I bake cookies for the nurses in the ward R had been transferred from, who had been so nice. There was a little kitchen for use by patients and families, and it had a stove. Eureka! Why didn't I think of that? I rummaged through to see what was already there, and if I hadn't been so drained from crying and walking I might have run or skipped all the way to the grocery store to buy ingredients.

It was almost a revelation how the utterly simple act of baking oatmeal-chocolate chip cookies in that ward brought smiles to the faces of people dying or trying to comfort those who were. The smell permeated the ward - something I worried might be irritating to those who could no longer eat, but got reports that it triggered fond memories in a way nothing else could. After all, smell is very closely connected to memory. What better way to make a hospital room feel a little more like home? Friends and family members who had been moving around the halls in a state of stunned grief for days (there was another young man on the ward as well, ironically born the same month as and in the same rare condition as Rachael) would come through the kitchen to get juice or warm up their suppers and every reaction was the same - "you're baking cookies?" and their eyes would glisten and they would smile in a peaceful way as they took a warm cookie; a small, soothing, open-ended comfort. Every single one smiled. No one said “oh, I shouldn’t” with a pained, guilty expression as they patted their tummies, as they might have had they not been on the 16th floor. All of our defenses were down, leaving us open to the raw experience of things, untainted by thinking too much. It made so much sense - after all, the palliative care ward is the end of the line, where they stop trying to fix things and the primary goal is comfort. When there's nothing else you can do, you can always bake cookies.

Honestly, I can't believe they got me to stop baking and go home. If it wasn't for Willem and the trainload of guilt over being away so much I felt like I had tied around my waist with a tight, scratchy rope, I'm sure I'd still be there. In fact, I think I'm going to cancel the Toronto book tour I was supposed to go on in early December and instead go visit the palliative care units in Calgary, and maybe even the children's hospital - every kid could use some gingerbread man decorating.

At this moment, W is winding down an almost hour-long full-on freakout meltdown of Montezuman proportions, screaming and crying in a state of semi-consciousness we can’t shake him out of. After many attempts we decided to just let him sob, curled up in a ball underneath a pillow in the corner of his bed. After awhile he got up and flung himself into the bathroom where he is now lying, forehead and palms pressed to the floor, sniveling and howling the way, really, only inflexibility and the fear of drawing an audience has kept me from doing myself for the past week. My own thoughts of Rachael and the last moments we spent together keep playing in a mental loop, and I know if I go back to bed I'll only lie and ponder my choice of last words and how they probably could have been better, more profound, more comforting.

Maybe I'll go bake some cookies.

2007-11-18T22:50:00.000-07:00

I'm in Vancouver, in the cozy living room of some very close friends, sitting on their couch with my laptop propped on the weathered wood coffee table beside a warm fireplace drinking some wine (and some scotch), while they are in a sterile hospital room - she propped up in bed connected to an IV and he curled up on a fold-out chair beside her for the night. And here I sit, surrounded by her stuff - her Real Simple magazine, her cookbooks, her CDs, her shoes, their half eaten loaves from Cobbs bread on the counter. Her photos, towels, makeup, her fresh rosemary shaped like a little Christmas tree, her handmade pottery mug still with evidence of coffee in it. It's almost inconceivable that she is never going to be here again. Did she know this when she arranged her shoes in that way beside the front door? When she flung her MEC running jacket on the back of the dining room chair? When she bought a magazine with features like Stop Bad Eating Habits and 23 Timeless Looks?

It is a profound thing to be with someone at the end of their life. A privilege. It is particularly heartbreaking when that person is in her mid 30s, but it reminds me how grateful I am for the time I did spend with her, and the parts of me I credit her for. Does it trivialize the situation to write on my blog about it? I hope not.

2007-11-15T09:35:00.001-07:00

Sometimes, life is like a box of chocolates - when you're at the Jasper Park Lodge for Christmas in November - a constant stream of parties and sessions, dancing, drinks, fabulous breakfast, lunch and dinner, spiced nuts and hot chocolate and truffles in your room. I had half-composed a post about how fantastic it all was, and how Mike (my husband) and Michael (Smith) jumped on the table at the gala dinner for the 500-person rendition of "The Twelve Days of Christmas" (our table was charged with reinacting the 5 golden rings. Apparently it's more dramatic from the tabletop. No animals were hurt during this rendition.)

Then there are days when you get a call from the husband of one of your closest friends, telling you sad news that she is in the hospital with a grim prognosis. And all those festive thoughts dissipate. I likely won't be posting for a bit, because she is all I can think of, and any other energy is focused on getting through the events I have scheduled and finish up the articles editors are waiting for. I can't bring myself to post snippets about life and food while close friends are grieving, and I am as well.

Talk soon.

Parenting is a lot like Apocolypse Now.

2007-11-12T16:44:00.001-07:00

"There's nothing like the smell of napalm in the morning."

"The sh*t piled up so fast you needed wings to stay above it."

"We keep building that bridge and they keep on blowing it up."

I'm kidding. Mostly.

It's Peanut Butter Month!

2007-11-10T20:19:00.001-07:00

I'm a huge fan. Unfortunately, I can be classified as a food "professional" and so can't cook my way to victory in the Jif Peanut Butter recipe contest - come up with a recipe using at least 1/4 cup peanut butter (not Skippy or Kraft - Jif), a Smuckers product (jam or ice cream topping) and some nutri-grain flour blend, and the grand prize is $10,000 and a Jif gift basket. (That must be one hell of a gift basket to be worth mentioning right after the ten thou.) It's rare to have a contest of this magnitude accept entries from Canadians. go for it!

And if you need a peanut butter muse, email me.

Meanwhile, make a pan of peanut butter Blondies, and eat them warm from the pan, just for inspiration:

Peanut Butter Blondies

1/3 cup light peanut butter
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1 large egg
1 large egg white
1 Tbsp. canola oil
1 tsp. vanilla
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1/3 cup butterscotch or chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350°F.

In a large bowl, combine peanut butter, sugar, brown sugar, egg, egg white, oil and vanilla. Stir until well blended and smooth.

In a small bowl, combine flour, baking soda and salt. Add to the peanut butter mixture and stir by hand until almost combined. Add the peanut butter chips and stir just until blended.

Spread batter into an 8” x 8” pan that has been sprayed with nonstick spray. Bake for 25–28 minutes, until golden and set around the edges but still soft in the middle. Cool in the pan on a wire rack.

Makes 16 blondies.

Per blondie: 135 calories, 4.2 g fat (1.4 g saturated fat, 1.6 g monounsaturated fat, 1 g polyunsaturated fat), 22.8 g carbohydrates, 13.5 mg cholesterol, 2.6 g protein, 0.6 g fiber. 27% calories from fat

Can't talk, eating. (And drinking)

2007-11-03T23:57:00.000-06:00

At Christmas in November !

Halloween- check. Up next, Christmas!

2007-10-31T22:33:00.000-06:00

I'm getting tired of all this talk about taking the sugar out of Halloween. Is nothing sacred? Halloween cannot be blamed for our obesity problem. The problem is not the sugary treats kids get once every October (and the concept of treats is becoming lost - isn't a "treat" something you have occasionally, not on a daily basis?) but the sugary treats parents feed their kids from day to day. Compare mini Tootsie Pops (or really any standard child-size lollipop) that contain 3 grams of sugar, or a snack-size Aero bar that contains 4 grams of sugar, with a Fruit-by-the-Foot that contains 10 g of sugar, a cup of chocolate milk that contains 28 g sugar, or a bottle of Fruitopia that delivers over 60 g of sugar (and absolutely no nutritional value - they haven't even bothered to inject any vitamins back in, like they do with apple juice and other juices that have been stripped of their nutrients - it's really just bottled liquid candy) - all things people don't think twice about serving their kids for regular lunches and snacks. And we want to take away the mini chocolate bars that get doled out on Halloween? Probably the one night kids at least go out and walk for a couple hours?

Beyond Halloween, I hear so many parents refer to their kids being "hopped up on sugar" if they've had a sucker or some chocolate. It's funny that no parent thinks their kid is "hopped up on apple juice" after giving them a juice box, when a typical NO SUGAR ADDED apple juice box contains 23 grams of sugar. That's more than a full-size Kit Kat, about the same as a full-size Aero, or equal to 7-8 suckers. If a parent let their kid down 8 suckers (and not many parents would) you'd bet they'd think their kid was bouncing off the walls as a result. Of course sugar in these refined (no fiber or fat to slow digestion down) forms does deliver a quick burst of energy which undoubtedly is a factor in their sudden need to run around even faster than usual, but studies have shown there is no link to hyperactivity. My theory is that there are typically other contributing circumstances on occasions that call for cake and candy - birthday parties, Halloween, Easter, Christmas - all these events are exciting, cause stress to parents and other grown-ups, and probably mean there are more than a few kids in the room.

Don't take the sugar out of Halloween. Take it out of breakfasts, lunches, drinks and snacks!

Willem figured out what candy was last Halloween, when he discovered the giant bowl of it beside the door and thought it was the Best Thing in the World. He still does, unfortunately. So tonight, when the neighborhood kids all congregated in front of the house next door, and W was outside oohing at Mike's strobe lights and glowy skeleton and blood-spattered chainsaw setup and decided he'd tag along (and really, I needed an excuse to check out some of the new neighbors) and discovered that if you go up to a house and knock and say please they will GIVE YOU CANDY, it was better than Christmas and his birthday all rolled into one. There was no need to beg for it, no reason to flail himself on the ground in despair, and no one said no, you can't have any more candy - here, you can have this pear. Each time he got a handful of candy he settled himself down on the steps with the intention of thoughtfully unwrapping and eating each one. Either that or he'd invite himself inside to pat the dog or head straight into their living room to press the buttons on their stereo.

(Mike can take the credit for W's Mr. Incredible costume this year - it seems if you are two and your costume involves underpants, people will think you are so adorable you deserve twice as much candy.)

So tomorrow we head to Jasper for Christmas in November. It's odd to think that by this time tomorrow, we are going to be completely immersed in Christmas stuff! Not that I'm complaining.

Sleepwalking

2007-10-31T00:53:00.000-06:00

Why do I always end up making things like worms-in-mud cookies and green goo fondue at 1am on nights when I have to be up (and more importantly, coherent and presentable) at 5 am? (Especially the night before leaving for a week-long event in Jasper?) Here's hoping I can blame my bloodshot eyes on the last-minute zombie costume. Hey, zombies are a little slow and incoherent too, aren't they? So if I drool and mumble maybe they will call it good acting...

(To make worms-in-mud cookies, make chocolate thumbprint cookies, use grape jam - very mudlike - and stick a gummy worm into the warm jam soon after they come out of the oven. Yes, I just invented those. Thank yew, thank yew very much. I don't think they hand out Pulitzer Prizes for worms-in-mud cookies though.)

Chocolate Thumbprints

1/4 cup butter or non-hydrogenated margarine, softened
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
2 Tbsp. corn syrup
1 large egg
1 tsp. vanilla
1/2 tsp. instant coffee granules, dissolved in 1 tsp. water
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (or half all-purpose, half whole wheat - or go all whole wheat if you can!)
1/3 cup cocoa
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4–1/3 cup raspberry, cherry or apricot jam

Preheat oven to 375°F.

In a large bowl, beat butter, sugar and brown sugar until well blended. Beat in corn syrup, egg, vanilla and coffee until smooth.

In a medium bowl, stir together the flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Add to the butter-sugar mixture and stir by hand just until you have a soft dough.

Roll the dough into walnut-sized balls, and place them about an inch apart on a cookie sheet that has been sprayed with nonstick spray. Make indentations in the middle of each cookie with your thumb, and fill each dent with jam.

Bake the cookies for 12–14 minutes, until just set around the edges. Transfer to a wire rack to cool. If you like, sprinkle cooled cookies with icing sugar before serving.

Makes 2 dozen cookies.

Per Cookie: 90 calories, 2.3 g fat (1.3 g saturated fat, 0.7 g monounsaturated fat, 0.1 g polyunsaturated fat), 16.5 g carbohydrates, 14.2 mg cholesterol, 1.4 g protein, 0.8 g fiber. 22% calories from fat

Breakfast of Champions

2007-10-30T10:03:00.000-06:00

The Bacon-Maple-Caramel Corn with Pecans was a huge hit this morning - it's my new favorite breakfast. Here's the recipe - and really, it isn't as high in fat as a lot of caramel corn, which is made with 1/2-1 cup of butter.

Bacon Maple-Caramel Corn with Pecans – an Eyeopener exclusive!

3 slices bacon
6-8 cups air popped popcorn (about 1/3 cup kernels)
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup maple syrup or corn syrup
2-4 Tbsp. butter
1 tsp. vanilla
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1/2 cup pecan pieces or halves (optional)

Preheat oven to 250° F. In a medium skillet, cook the bacon until crisp. Transfer to a plate, crumble into chunky pieces and reserve 1-2 tablespoons of the drippings.

Spray a large bowl with non-stick spray and put the popcorn in it, along with the pecans if you’re using them.

Combine the brown sugar, corn syrup, butter and reserved bacon drippings in a medium saucepan and bring to a boil over medium heat. Boil without stirring, swirling the pan occasionally, for 4 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in the vanilla and baking soda. It will foam up at first.

Quickly pour over the popcorn and stir to coat well, adding the reserved bacon. Tongs work really well for this! Spread onto a cookie sheet or roasting pan and bake for 30 minutes, stirring once or twice. Cool.

Makes a big bowlful.

Per cup: 244 calories, 4.4 g total fat (2.4 g saturated fat, 1.4 g monounsaturated fat, 0.3 g polyunsaturated fat), 3.3 g protein, 49 g carbohydrate, 14.7 mg cholesterol, 1 g fiber. 16% calories from fat.

It's Cake Week!

2007-10-29T23:20:00.000-06:00

Sorry for the radio silence. It happens when I have too much to say, and not enough time to sit down and say it. I'm afraid once I get started the effect will be like quicksand and I'll a) write more than anyone cares to read, while b) becoming further and further behind on everyone and everything else that's waiting for me. How many of my posts have time-management themes?

It's easy to appear organized and successful when you have a team of assistants to be organized and productive on your behalf. (Just like it's easy for Kid Rock to pick a fight with Tommy Lee, when both of them have 4 bodyguards to keep them from actually hurting each other. Sheesh.) I keep thinking of the Seinfeld episode where Kramer gets an intern for Kramerica. Perhaps I'll start Julitopia and hire me some interns.

Anyone on Facebook knows it's the eve of my birthday, and most of the things I was going to accomplish by my birthday have still not been accomplished, and I now have 42 minutes left to pull them off. That, or write this, go invent maple-bacon caramel corn with pecans for tomorrow morning's Eyeopener, and clean up all the powder that W so precicely sprinkled over the entire bathroom. Bacon caramel corn! How does this not exist? Maybe I'll make a million dollars on it. But maybe not, and do I really want that to be my legacy? My Dad thought up adult diapers way back in medical school, before they existed, but never patented the idea. I could have been heir to the Depends fortune. A crapload of money, I'm sure, but I would have had to live with being heir to the Depends fortune.

A contributing factor to my birthday-eve-blues every year is likely the quantity of cake that is consumed this week before we even get to my birthday, let alone Halloween and the Halloween candy sales that start Nov. 1. My sister's birthday was on the 24th, Mike's is the 25th, so we've already had two cheap grocery store cakes that taste like inside-out Twinkies (that I secretly love, especially the thick icing roses) and our communal birthday party on Saturday featured a Marble Slab ice cream cake (I won it at a silent auction - just trying to be a good philanthropist), a croquembouche (tower of profiteroles filled with pastry cream) from Manuel Latruwe and a carrot cake I made with canola and flax oil and some applesauce made from the apples in my yard. Amazingly enough at the end of the night I enjoyed the carrot cake most, and the chocolate-caramel-turtle ice cream cake was not more delicious than the sum of its parts.

That reaction to all food glopped with caramel, fudge chunks and chocolate sauce is a hangover from childhood, when I was obsessed with such things. Sure, I still like them, but I never enjoy them quite as much as I think I do.

Carrot Birthday Cake

This is the best carrot cake recipe I know – I’ve been making it for years. It does contain a lot of oil (still less than most carrot cake recipes do), but canola oil contains healthy mono and polyunsaturated fats, the kind we want to include in our diets. Adding some flax oil too will boost your omega 3 intake in the best possible way.

3 cups all-purpose flour
1 3/4 cups sugar (I sometimes use half white, half brown)
1 Tbsp. baking soda
2 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. salt
1 cup canola oil, or 3/4 cup canola oil and 1/4 cup flax oil
4 large eggs
2 tsp. vanilla
2 cups coarsely grated carrots (about 3 carrots)
1 cup applesauce
a couple handfuls of chopped walnuts, pecans, raisins, or dried cranberries, or a combination, if you like

Preheat the oven to 325°F (170°C). Spray a Bundt pan or two 9-inch round cake pans with nonstick spray.

In a large bowl, stir together the flour, sugar, baking soda, cinnamon and salt. In a smaller bowl, stir together the oil, eggs, and vanilla. Add the oil mixture, grated carrots and applesauce to the dry ingredients and stir by hand until almost combined. Add the nuts and dried fruit and stir just until the batter is blended.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan(s). Bake for 1 hour and 10 minutes for a Bundt cake, or for 40-45 minutes for layer cakes, until the tops are cracked and springy to the touch and the edges are pulling away from the sides of the pan. Cool the cake(s) in the pan for 10-15 minutes, then loosen the edge with a knife, and invert onto a wire rack to cool completely before slathering it with cream cheese frosting (made with low fat cream cheese and a splash of lemon juice).

Makes 1 Bundt (say like the lady in My Big Fat Greek Wedding).

The wheat, the whole wheat, and nothing but the wheat. Or is it?

2007-10-23T11:44:00.000-06:00

Today on CBC I talked about one of Canada's most unknown health regulations: one dating back to 1964, in which Health Canada allows producers to toss 5% of the wheat kernel - typically the germ and bran part, which is why we buy whole wheat products in the first place - and still label it whole wheat.

That's right. According to Health Canada’s Food and Drug Regulation, up to 5% of the kernel can be removed to help reduce rancidity and prolong the shelf life of whole wheat flour. The portion of the kernel that is removed for this purpose contains much of the germ and some of the bran. Typically, most of the bran is lost, as well as up to 70% of the germ, and the end product can still be labeled whole wheat.

A grain kernel is made up of three components: the bran, germ and endosperm. Including the germ and bran delivers benefits beyond fiber – those are the parts of the wheat that contain the most healthy fatty acids, vitamins, minerals and antioxidants. In fact, the American Dietetic Association states that whole grains contain antioxidants in amounts similar to or sometimes exceeding those found in fruits and veg. But when you buy whole wheat bread and other whole wheat products in Canada, you most likely aren’t getting whole wheat.

Health Canada was accepting submissions for a revision on their definition of whole grain until this past February 12th, but they haven’t made any changes. It seems ridiculous that they would even ask for people to request changes, rather than just implement them themselves.

What can we do? Labeling like “multi-grain”, “100% wheat”, “whole wheat” and “cracked wheat” don’t indicate whole wheat. There are local producers, such as Highwood Crossing in Aldersyde and Grainworks in Vulcan, who produce stone-ground whole wheat flours that contain all of the wheat kernel. And you can of course buy wheat germ and bran on its own to add to your own baked goods. But we should be able to rely on Health Canada to deliver something as simple as the whole wheat when a product is labelled whole wheat.

It's worth a mention that government has mandated the inclusion of some of the vitamins and iron that were naturally present in the germ. Mandatory: Thiamine, riboflavin, niacin, folic acid, iron. Voluntary: Vitamin B6, d-pantothenic acid, calcium, magnesium. But of course it's always better to get your nutrients from actual food sources.

Outraged? Let Health Canada know. It's the only way to implement change.

Section Head: Nutrition Labelling and Claims
Nutrition Evaluation Division, Health Canada
Sir Frederick G. Banting Research Centre
251 promenade Sir Frederick Banting Driveway
A.L. 2203A
Ottawa, ON
K1A 0K9

e-mail: healthclaims_submissions@hc-sc.gc.ca

It's Just Food!

2007-10-22T17:35:00.000-06:00

I suppose I should mention that my (and co-host Ned Bell's) new show is on... Mondays at 11 am (MT) and Saturdays at 6 pm and 5 am (for those who are breastfeeding or about to run a marathon, or coming home from a really good party) on CLT (http://www.clt.ca/) - I think today was episode #4 - Pork. Honestly, I keep forgetting.

Matcha - it's a Good Thing.

2007-10-16T16:01:00.001-06:00

Everyone hears about green tea these days - it is the trendy nutraceutical that is finding its way into everything from beverages to sports bars. Matcha is a Japanese green tea that has been used since the 12th century, primarily in Japanese tea ceremonies. It's the brilliant emerald powdered stuff that also colors those Asian chewy coconut-tasting candies and fancy desserts on restaurant menus – green tea ice cream, green tea crème brulee etc., but people don’t often think of cooking with it at home

When brewed, the powdered leaf is not strained or left in the pot, but is whisked into the beverage and consumed. Because the leaves themselves are ingested, Matcha contains higher concentrations of vitamins and antioxidants than most other teas, green, herbal, or otherwise.

Matcha contains nearly 10 times the polyphenols and antioxidants of regular teas, twice the antioxidants of red wine, and 9 times the beta-carotene of spinach.

This is what you get from just ¼ tsp (2g) of matcha:

• polyphenols and antioxidants 1.212 g
• protein 0.612 g
• plant lipids 0.106 g
• fibre 0.77 g
• calcium 8.4 mg
• magnesium 4.6 mg
• iron 0.34 mg
• zinc 0.126 mg
• potassium 54 mg
• copper 0.012 mg
• phosphorus 7 mg
• vitamin a beta carotene 580
• vitamin a retinol equivalents 96
• vitamin b6 0.0192 mg
• vitamin c 1.2 mg
• vitamin e 0.56 mg
• vitamin k 58
• thiamin 0.012 mg
• riboflavin 0.027 mg
• niacin 0.08 mg
• folate 24 mg

So I was thinking. It's obviously not damaged by heat, so why not add it in small quantities to other recipes? It's so potent you don't need much, and every little bit helps. Add it as a flavoring, or just for its nutritional qualities to vinaigrettes, smoothies, baking, juices, marinades, soup... some people even add it to milk with a bit of honey for a sweet green tea drink.

Or you could brew a pot of it, as I'm about to do on this rainy, gloomy day in Vancouver. My hotel doesn't have internet access (!) so I keep having to run over to the internet cafe, and get soaked each time.

If you can't find it, you can get it from my friend Nicole at her tnik website.

Bottoms up!

It's 5:01 AM and I'm heading out to BT Edmonton

2007-10-12T05:01:00.001-06:00

...we are going to make low fat cookies, in honor of the re-release of OSC. It's making me nostalgic for the original book, the one I designed with a friend in Saskatoon in her basement, with the photo we took of me in her backyard and drove over to the Superstore to develop and scan (very high tech stuff 7 years ago - now my $100 printer comes with a built-in scanner) before placing it on the back cover over the ISBN. I remember the day those first 10,000 books arrived by CanPar at my parents' house and everyone helped me load them into the garage (I was bandaged up from my surgery - no not lipo - but that's another story) and the overwhelming feeling of ohmygodwhathaveIdone - I have a garage full of books and owe the bank $35,000! What do I do now? I went on my first real book tour to Toronto, loading my carry-on with as many cookies as I could cram in because the producer at BT had requested a "mountain of cookies" and I had to be there by 6am and was flying in the night before (not that my hotel room had a fully stocked kichen suitable for cookie-baking anyway). There was a full-on blizzard and so I couldn't reserve a cab, and had no idea how close I was to the studio, so set my alarm for 3:30 just to be sure I'd make it there by 6. (In case you haven't already done the math, that's 1:30am Calgary time, not that I really slept anyway.) Since then I've sat at countless tables in countless Chapters (OK I probably could count them had I actually kept track) giving out many many dozens of cookies to people who came up and asked "are these free?" and talked to people on the phone, like the lady from Ontario who called to ask what to do with the yolk when the recipe only calls for an egg white, and she doesn't want to waste it. Calling long-distance to discuss the options didn't seem to be an issue though.

Ah, memories. Perhaps I'll dig up my old demo tape, the one I never did use once I summoned up the courage to watch it, with footage of some of my very first TV spots. You could call it vintage Julie. I think you can post videos on this thing now... scary to think what will be possible when Willem is my age.

Looks like the file is too big. Ha- something technology can't handle. You'll have to settle for zucchini brownies instead.

Chocolate Chip Zucchini Brownies

If I have to eat zucchini, I want it to be wrapped up in a brownie. Because it has some texture to it, this is a perfect recipe to add a sprinkle of ground flaxseed to.

1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup cocoa
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 cup butter or non-hydrogenated margarine, melted
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
1 packed cup grated raw, unpeeled zucchini (1 medium)
1/3 cup chocolate chips
2 Tbsp. ground flaxseed (optional)

Preheat oven to 350°F.

In a large bowl, combine flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt; set aside.

In a medium bowl, stir together melted butter, sugar, brown sugar, eggs and vanilla until smooth. Add the egg mixture and the zucchini to the flour mixture and stir by hand until almost combined; add chocolate chips and flaxseed and stir just until blended.

Pour into an 8” x 8” pan that has been sprayed with nonstick spray. Bake for 30 minutes, until the edges are springy to the touch but the middle is still soft — a slight indentation should be left when touched. Do not overbake! Cool in the pan on a wire rack or eat them warm from the pan.

Makes 12 brownies.

Per Brownie: 148 calories, 5.1 g fat (2.9 g saturated fat, 1.5 g monounsaturated fat, 0.4 g polyunsaturated fat), 24.4 g carbohydrates, 35 mg cholesterol, 2.7 g protein, 2.1 g fiber. 30% calories from fat.

Pumpkin Lattes for the Cheap.

2007-10-10T15:37:00.000-06:00

I am still nursing a turkey hangover. It was a good weekend - 2 dinners = lots of crispy bits (the well-browned and grease-soaked stuffing poking out of the end of the turkey and swimming around in the drippings is my favorite part. Forget the neck! A friend fights with his kids over who gets the heart and liver. Ew. Crispy bits are where it's at. I eat most of my calories standing over the stove picking. Unfortunately I then don't want to miss out on the feast around the table afterward, and the picking has only whetted my appetite. Hey, I wonder if that's why appetizers were invented?

On a cute note, my Mom put out a bowl of M&Ms with dessert and Willem politely sat there and struggled to eat his with a knife and fork. He must have seen that episode of Seinfeld. I suppose if he had, he'd have tried using a spoon...

So you may have noticed it's holiday season at Starbucks. $5 for a pumpkin spice latte, which I couldn't help but want on Sunday afternoon as we piled up crunchy yellow leaves at the park, knowing there was a turkey waiting for us when we got home. But I'm cheap; I don't want to pay $5 for a coffee. So I applied my cheap-latte trick to a cheap P.S. latte. For the low low price of $2.10, you can get a tall Americano in a grande cup. A latte is an Americano with steamed milk added, so all you need to do is add milk to fill the cup (the only difference is your "latte" will be a little cooler - but hey, you can drink it faster) and some good shakes of the cinnamon and nutmeg (read: pumpkin pie spice) they have standing by on the little prep counter. A $4.50 value for $2.10.

You're welcome.

Gilding the Sprout

2007-10-06T22:40:00.001-06:00

OK, sorry, but it seems that whomever was in charge of posting the Thanksgiving recipes didn't (it was a crazy day on Friday), and a lot of you went out and bought Brussels sprouts (I'm amazed at how few people know their correct name - Brussels sprouts - I counted from the very, very many email entries we got and exactly no one spelled it right - so if you are among them, don't feel bad. How often do you have to write "Brussels sprouts" anyway?) just to make the gilded B. sprouts I talked about on Friday. And damn, were they good. Everyone adored them, even though the leaves were finicky to remove from their heads (we ended up coring them with a paring knife, which too was a bit of a hassle, but the assembly line of people we had working on them was fun, in a shelling-peas-in-Grandma's-kitchen sort of way). I was saying to Jim it would be a good idea to ditch the B. sprouts for ice cream. Vanilla ice cream topped with warm butter-maple syrup-whiskey? come on! But I suppose then you wouldn't have that last straw to grasp, the argument that it's a vegetable dish and as such seconds and thirds are freebies.

So here it is - thanks, Ellen:

Gilded Brussels Sprouts

Remove the leaves from enough Brussels sprouts to serve your group, as you would from heads of lettuce. In a pot of boiling salted water, cook the leaves until they are just tender, but retain their bright colours. (Blanch them - I cooked them for just a minute or two, then removed them with a slotted spoon.)

Meanwhile, in a fry pan combine equal amounts of melted butter, maple syrup [the real stuff] and Canadian rye over medium heat. When the mixture becomes hot, but not boiling, add the Brussels sprout leaves.

Toss to coat evenly. Transfer to a heated serving platter and serve. For extra gilt and guilt, add toasted hazelnuts, sliced or whole.

Note: I found the flaked filberts (Mike called in a panic from the grocery store to confirm that filberts were indeed the same as hazelnuts) were perfect, texture-wise, scattered over the leaves. In my humble opinion, whole nuts would overpower the delicate leaves.

Another note: And they shouldn't add extra guilt - nuts are one of the healthiest foods you can eat, supplying heart-healthy fats, fiber, protein, vitamins and minerals. If you're going to feel guilty about something, there's that butter, syrup and whiskey you just slathered over your sprouts. Then again, guilt has no place when it comes to food - guilt is a terrible motivator and does no one any good. Trust me, the ability to truly enjoy your food without berating yourself on any level is essential to gaining control over any food issues you might have. I think I might have said this last year...

Am I awake?

2007-10-05T05:27:00.001-06:00

Of course, the one night Willem sleeps through the night without having a nightmare or sleepwalking or talking/laughing/doing other weird things in his sleep is the same one I go to bed at 1:30, have insomnia until after 2 and my alarm goes off at 4:30.

It is also the same night he decides he needs to brush Woody and Buzz's hair using both of my brushes (one each), so that instead of throwing myself in the shower at 5:20, I spend ten minutes combing the house for something to brush my hair with (pun intended).

And I never had an Easy-Bake® Oven

2007-10-05T00:26:00.000-06:00

I thought I'd post something while I wait for my pumpkin-pecan pies to bake. Sure, I'm baking pies at twenty to one in the morning. What else would I be doing on a night when I have to be up at around 4:30 in order to finish baking assorted stuffings and yams with caramelized pears and curried fruit bake, make gravy and be at the studio (and semi-presentable) at 6ish? Sleeping? Surely you know by now that I was born without the time management gene. I'm pretty sure I get it from my Mom, who I'd bet a freshly baked pumpkin pie is sitting at her computer right now, and will sleep in the reclining chair in the living room tonight.

The reason why I find myself cooking turkey dinner in the middle of the night (again) rather than mid-afternoon on Thanksgiving day like most sane people, is because we held a contest at CBC radio for the first annual turkey dinner-breakfast tomorrow, for which listeners had to submit recipes for those foods which defined Thanksgiving at their home. (But really, it's because I still can't manage to grasp the amount of time it takes to whip together a meal for 18, plus dessert.) We got all sorts of interesting submissions, from tomato aspic made from lemon Jell-O and tins of tomato soup, decorated with green olives (come on, I had to choose that one!) to "Aunt Evie's Mushrooms" - sliced mushrooms sauteed in vast quantities of butter, finished with a cup of heavy whipping cream and covered with grated Monterey Jack before being baked into a goey, molten mass of delicious, cheesy, mushroomy fat. Although sauteed mushrooms (not to mention butter and cheese) are among my favorite things in the world - as teenagers my friend Sue and I would come home late from the bar and cook up a huge pan of sliced mushrooms in butter, salt them heavily and eat the whole lot - I couldn't bring myself to make Aunt Evie's. If I ever run a marathon though, it will be the first thing on my post-run menu.

I am looking forward to the "Gilded Brussels Sprouts" I'll make at the studio in the morning, in which the leaves are removed from their heads as if they were lettuce, quickly blanched, then sauteed in equal parts butter, maple syrup and rye (Canadian Club, because my Grandad built the factory), and scattered with sliced hazelnuts. yum. Also not quite low fat, but at least the butter is enveloping miniature cabbages.

For all the recipes, visit the Eyeopener website.

Best use of a squash.

2007-10-03T20:42:00.000-06:00

I love fall more than any time of year. Not only because it includes the biggest food day of the year (not really counting Christmas, because you can't compare anything to Christmas), my birthday and mini chocolate bar season, but because the sun feels warm instead of too hot, it gets dark when it's supposed to, and everything turns gold and red and the leaves swoosh and crunch underfoot. During the fall I'm always buying tons of squash, mostly because it's cheap but also because it's so seasonally alluring piled up on its market displays. Butternut is my favorite, it's great roasted or baked (what's the difference?) with maple syrup, delicious in ravioli or lasagna, but the absolute best use of a squash is in soup. There was a great recipe from Capo in a Canadian Living magazine last year, but it contained altogether way too much butter and cream, so I lightened it at a meal makeover class at the Cooking Room last month, and here it is. If you don't want to go the sage route, try adding some fresh ginger to the onion as you saute it, and then later some curry powder or paste.

This is also the soup element of the Thanksgiving dinner menu plan I developed for wovenfare, a new online meal planning service invented by some Calgary women who came up with the concept and programmed the whole thing themself, and are wonderfully enthusuastic about their new company, which was also recently mentioned in Canadian Living. So if you want a Thanksgiving dinner solution, complete with recipes, shopping lists and timeline (and they tested it all last weekend, at home with visiting in-laws) - go get it. It's free!

Maple Roasted Butternut Squash Soup with Pears

2 medium butternut squash
¼ cup maple syrup (divided)
1 Tbsp. canola or olive oil
2 Tbsp. butter (divided)
1 small onion, peeled and chopped
1 ripe Bartlett pear or gala apple, peeled and sliced
1 9oo mL carton chicken broth
½ tsp. sage
pinch cinnamon

pinch salt
1 cup half & half

Preheat oven to 400°F.

Cut squash in half lengthwise and place cut-side-up on a rimmed baking sheet or in a 9”x13” pan. Drizzle with half the maple syrup and roast for about an hour, until tender and golden on top. Remove from the oven and set aside until cool enough to handle.

In a large soup pot, heat the canola oil with 1 tablespoon butter and sauté the onion for about 5 minutes, until translucent. Add the pear or apple and cook for another minute or two, until the fruit softens.

Meanwhile, peel the squash and coarsely chop it. Add to the onions and pear along with the broth, sage, cinnamon and salt. Cover and bring to a simmer. Reduce heat to med-low, cover and simmer 20-25 minutes, until the squash is very tender.

Stir in the remaining tablespoon of butter and the cream and puree in the pot using a hand-held immersion blender. Alternately, you can transfer it in batches to a blender to puree, then return to the pot.

Adjust the seasonings if necessary, adding a little extra broth or water if it’s too thick. If you like, drizzle the remaining maple syrup over each bowl of soup as it’s served; otherwise stir it in to the pot before you serve it. Serve hot.

Serves 6.

It's baack!

2007-10-02T00:24:00.000-06:00

My very first book, One Smart Cookie, which I designed with a friend in Saskatoon in her basement in 2000, has had an extreme makeover. It has been redesigned, updated and had new recipes added, including an entire holiday section. I heard it was officially released this past Friday, although I haven't seen it yet. There should be a box on my doorstep sometime this week, and it will be trickling into bookstores. They have me going to Vancouver in mid-October to do some classes, media stuff and events, and then perhaps Toronto in November. We'll see.

Going cold turkey on the scale.

2007-09-29T22:39:00.000-06:00

Yoni's post the other day about scale addiction reminded me of a similar one I had written months ago - in April, in fact. I always wondered why no one commented on it. As it turns out, it's because I saved it, rather than actually posting for all to see. Mystery solved.

So the point of my post was that I was going to attempt to go for an entire year without weighing myself. Far longer (by about 51 weeks) than I have gone in my entire lifetime, or at least since I learned what a scale actually was. Maybe that made me a scale addict myself - I've always been a believer in checking my weight regularly, in order to keep tabs on it as well as getting to know my weight fluctuations - always a few pounds in a day. Clearly since one can't actually gain nor lose 3 pounds of body mass (that's 3 x 3500 calories) in one day, other factors are responsible for the jumping numbers. But I did manage to get a clear handle on it, learning for example that on average I'd weigh 2 lbs less after a good workout than before, and more in the evening than in the morning. I pitied friends who were on weight regimens that only allowed a weekly or monthly weight check - the anticipation was enormous and they would be so often be so disappointed in the outcome, and I knew it would have made a world of difference if they had just weighed themselves at a different time of day, or month, or something. I recall as a kid (and then teenager, and then grown-up) everyone rushing to pee before weighing in at Weight Watchers meetings, taking off their rings, not having anything to drink for hours before the meeting. What real difference does that make? It's not true weight loss, but in the world of dieting, even a couple of pounds is a lot - often the difference between victory and defeat. Ridiculous, when you think about it. Especially since muscle weighs more, starting a weight-training program often means fewer numbers moving on the scale, even when you are more compact in size, which is ultimately the goal.

So this past April, I had already gone far longer than I ever had without weighing myself, and so I went down the basement to do the deed. Instead, I sat on the stairs, pondering the outcome. What would my reaction be to the numbers on the scale? If it was high, I'd be upset, mad at myself for letting the weight creep up again. If it was low, I'd be relieved and likely become even more lax about my eating habits. And what would the difference be? Nothing. I'd look the same, feel the same, and my clothes would still not fit properly. I didn't need to weigh myself to know that I wasn't in the best shape I could be, that my jeans were getting tighter and my arms flabbier. I already knew I needed to move more and eat less. Weighing myself would put a number on the problem, and probably skew my thoughts about it, but besides perhaps being better able to track my progress, wouldn't change the way things were. Besides, weight is a poor indication of health - a 120 pound woman could have very little muscle mass or cardio fitness; likewise, when I was 165 pounds I was in great shape, and a size 8-10, even though my BMI said I should be 140. (At almost 6 feet tall! I think the last time I was 140 was when I was 8.) Because muscle weighs more than fat, but takes up less space and is active tissue, enabling your body to burn more calories even at rest, I'd rather be a toned 165 than a flabby 140. Two people of the same height could be the exact same weight and entirely different sizes - numbers don't mean much.

When my nephew was about 7, he made the connection between my sister's mood and her weight. He started adjusting the little knob at the base of the scale that sets it evenly at zero, turning it down ever so slightly every day. My sister was euphoric. By the end of the week she had lost nearly 8 pounds and was in the best mood ever - she was confident, happy, sure of herself, literally bounding as she walked. Then one day she realized what Aaron had been doing. She was completely deflated. Her outlook changed in an instant, even though she looked and felt and her clothes fit the exact same as they had the day before. Just believing that she weighed a few pounds less made her think she looked better, and because psychology is such a huge part of it, she felt better and believed she was capable of more - such a vital component of successful weight loss. 10 years later, I've never forgotten his experiment.

So I didn't weigh myself. (Unfortunately, I didn't start the running regimen I wholeheartedly intended to start as soon as I got my cast off either (I broke my leg in an unfortunate free-bar fundraiser accident in March) so I'm kind of in the same boat, but I've been temporarily liberated from the psychology of the scale. Ironically, as I was updating this post, I learned that my doctors' appointment tomorrow will include a full physical, including height and weight (the receptionist told me ominously) - so I guess you can't always go completely cold turkey. Think she'll let me close my eyes on the scale?

Making it yourself.

2007-09-25T20:58:00.001-06:00

After all that, I forgot to let you know how to make the stuff. Laurie Colwin (the late and really great) taught me how to do it, via her book More Home Cooking, using no more than a glass jar and a sweater. Since then I have started keeping the jar warm in one of those small coolers that isn't good for much more than a 6-pack, which I fill halfway with warm-to-the-touch water that insulates the yogurt overnight, much like one of those yogurt incubating machines from the 70's did. My Mom had one that collected dust in the basement until we sold it in a garage sale.

Making your own yogurt is much like making your own sourdough… once you have the starter going, you can make your next batch using a bit of the last, and so on. But to begin, you’ll need a small container of the best plain yogurt you can find, making sure it contains active cultures. I use Bles-Wold yogurt from Sunterra market or Vital Green Farms from the Calgary Farmer’s Market. Start with 2 1/2 cups of milk. I haven’t experimented with soy milk, but regular milk (whole, 2% or 1%, not skim) and goat’s milk (which will produce a tangier yogurt) work very well. Bring it to a simmer in a saucepan, then turn down the heat and simmer for 2 minutes. Pour the scalded milk into a bowl, through a strainer or cheesecloth if you have acquired any brown bits around the edge, and cool until you can hold your finger in the milk and count to 10.

The ratio of milk to (plain) yogurt is 2 1/2 cups to 1 rounded tablespoon. Place the yogurt in a small dish and add some of the milk to it to warm it up, then whisk it back into the milk. Pour into a glass jar (glass holds heat well), wrap in a towel or sweater and put in a warm place for about 6 hours or overnight. Ideally, you want to keep it undisturbed at about 110 degrees for 6-8 hours, but mine has not been that hot and still works. In the morning you should end up with a lovely jar of fresh yogurt.

Gut flora - grow your own gut garden.

2007-09-25T10:12:00.000-06:00

I spent hours yesterday reading about probiotics, what seems to be not much more than a new marketing strategy to get us to buy more yogurt. I still have not been able to establish the difference between regular yogurt with beneficial active cultures, and those labeled "probiotic" - I suspect it's another fancy word to make us believe something is good for us, in the most general terms possible.

The WHO suggests we define probiotics as “Live microorganisms which when administered in adequate amounts confer a health benefit on the host”. (That's us, the host. I can't stop thinking about Aliens.) Yogurt is produced by introducing lactic acid bacteria into milk, which is then fermented, during which the bacteria convert the natural sugars in milk (lactose) into lactic acid. The increased acidity causes milk proteins to thicken, and the lactic acid gives it its tang.

Strains of the genera Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium are two principal kinds of probiotic bacteria, lactobacillus being one of the primary bacteria used to make regular yogurt, so as far as I can tell, what makes regular yogurt with active cultures different from those labeled “probiotic” is that it's a slightly different strain of lactobacillus in one vs. the other.

(Lactobacillus is present in the gastrointestinal tract, where they are symbiotic and make up a small portion of the gut flora, and change the PH of your colon. Your intestinal tract is home to approximately 100 trillion – that’s like a bajillion - microorganisms, consisting of over 400 known bacterial species, and many that have not even been identified yet, because they can't be cultured. How cultured are your gut flora?)

The thing about probiotics is there are so many strains of bacteria – even when they are in the same species, they have different probiotic functions. To keep tabs on each one, particularly when there is such a wide variety of factors, would be difficult, so there is a tendency to generalize about 'probiotic' effects, assuming that any body of research on specific probiotic strains can be applied to any product marketed as a probiotic.

The rationale behind probiotics is that they are intended to assist the body's naturally occurring gut flora to reestablish themselves. They are sometimes recommended after a course of antibiotics. Maintenance of a healthy gut flora is, however, dependent on many factors, especially the quality of food intake. Dairy products are the most common vehicle for probiotics because they protect the bacteria from being broken down by stomach acids, enabling them to make it through the digestive system to the intestinal tract intact. They also provide compounds known as prebiotics that feed the probiotics.

The biggest claim ACTIVIA® makes (the other interesting thing I found was that many of these strains of bacteria are actually patented and have brand names - Activia is scientifically known as Bifidobacterium animalis DN-173 010), the one that they do have studies to back up, is that it improves intestinal transit (makes you regular) – preventing transit strikes in your internal transit system. They do have a lot of good-looking people in white lab coats on their website though. Dannon recommends "regular daily intake of Activia® by Dannon by everyone." Of course they do!

I still don't understand what differentiates yogurt labeled "probiotic" from those that have active bacterial cultures, which is all of them. Besides using different strains of bacteria, which aren't always differentiated between anyway.

Anyone?

Beware the email hoax!

2007-09-18T14:55:00.000-06:00

I don't know about you, but I get a ton of messages in my inbox every day, warning me about the dangers of this and that, implicating every person who ever had a flat tire as a potential axe murderer, and urging me to pass on to everyone I know the hidden dangers of this or that food. The stories are often eerily elaborate - who has time to come up with this stuff?

And it isn't always via email - I hear scary food stories at parties and around here and there (being as my computer is in the bedroom, I don't get water cooler talk as such) - people often ask me if the things they hear are true. Here are some that have come up recently (or not so recently) that are totally not so:

Chocolate milk is made with sour or bloody milk.

(This story has spilled over to include new prepared coffee beverages as well.) Have you ever tasted sour milk? No amount of chocolate can cover sour milk. Another common theory is that when cows are milked, often their udders begin to bleed. This tainted milk is not sellable, except to chocolate milk manufacturers, who get a good deal on it. Totally not true.

(But while we’re on the subject… it’s tough to miss those ads for chocolate milk, saying it contains “the same nutrients as white milk” – that means it still contains calcium and vitamin D, but what they don’t mention is that chocolate milk contains as much sugar as Coke, and 80% more calories. To me, that doesn’t classify them as having the same nutritional value as white milk!)

Another rumor going around is that they add sugar to low fat milk, so it's better to buy high-fat. I've heard this from a few very well-educated people I would expect to know better. Again, not true. If sugar was added, it would have to say so on the label. Often sugar is added to low-fat products to improve taste and texture (sugar acts as a tenderizer in baked goods, much like fat), and to drive down the percentage of calories from fat. The same does not apply to milk. All milks contain the same amount of sugar. Skim contains slightly more – 1 g per cup – just because the added bulk from fat that isn’t there.

A tooth or penny or nail left in Coke will dissolve overnight.

There is a lot of Cokelore out there – you may have heard that the modern image of Santa was created by Coke (not true), that it was originally green (not true), or only two people in the world know the formula (not true). This particular story goes that if you put a tooth (or a penny, or a nail) in a glass of Coke, it will dissolve overnight, and so imagine what it’s doing to your teeth, not to mention your digestive tract! Coke contains acids such as citric acid and phosphoric acid, which will eventually dissolve things like teeth, given enough time, but so do plenty of other substances, such as orange juice. The amount is so low that our digestive systems can easily handle it. Besides, we don’t hold Coke in our mouths overnight. (But that's not to say you should start drinking Coke. Bad Coke.)

Canola oil is toxic.

This is a really elaborate story, and a very harmful one, because canola oil is one of the healthiest oils you can eat, lower in saturated fat (7%) than other common cooking oils (ie 12% for sunflower oil, 15% for olive oil), it’s the best source of omega 3s of any common cooking oil, and it’s made in Canada!

One claim is that canola oil can be used industrially to make lubricants, oils, fuel, soaps, paints, plastic, cosmetics or ink. But the fact is any organic hydrocarbon (including ALL vegetable oils) can be processed and denatured to make industrial chemicals. Proteins in milk can be used to make glue. Wheat and canola can be used to make ethanol. Just because you can do this doesn't make the approved food canola oil or corn oil, for example that you buy at the grocery store somehow poisonous or harmful!

If you visit the canola council of Canada they answer all the questions that arise from this particular myth http://www.canola-council.org/cooking_myths.html

Aspartame has been proven responsible for the epidemic of Alzheimer’s, birth defects, diabetes, cancer, brain tumors Gulf War syndrome, lupus, multiple sclerosis and seizures.

The long list should be the first red flag – just as no single chemical cures everything, none causes everything. In a nutshell, to save a lot of big words and scientific explanation, the story suggests that methanol can be converted to formaldehyde and then to formic acid, and thus cause metabolic acidosis and neurotoxicity or "methanol toxicity." Trace amounts of methanol exist naturally in many fruits and vegetables, and a tiny amount is released whenever the body digests aspartame.

But there's four times as much methanol in a glass of tomato juice as in a can of aspartame-sweetened soda, and our bodies have no trouble handling such a tiny amount. There’s four times as much methanol in tomato juice than there is in an aspartame-sweetened soft drink, same in an alcoholic beverage. Clinical studies have shown no evidence of toxic effects and no increase in plasma concentrations of methanol, formic acid, or phenylalanine with daily consumption of 50 mg/kg aspartame (equivalent to 17 cans of diet soft drink daily for a 70 kg adult).

Tim Horton's puts nicotine or MSG in their coffee.

People need a shocking theory as to why people are so hooked on it, willing to stand in ridiculous lineups in order to get a cup. It contains neither. It’s addictive because it’s coffee, it’s cheap, and they use 18% cream instead of half and half, which is 10% butterfat (18% is now the norm – you may notice 18% “coffee cream” on store shelves – not a good trend!)

There's a great new website called Snopes that debunks a lot of urban legends out there. If you're not sure about a story you hear, go search for it, and chances are they've already done the groundwork.

Feel better?

What's for school lunch?

2007-09-14T09:15:00.000-06:00

I wrote the cover story for Swerve today. If you don't get the Herald, check it out here!

Sometimes you feel like a nut...

2007-09-12T16:28:00.000-06:00

I had a nap today, kind of. I dozed in and out while reading my newly-aquired copy of American Food Writing, for inspiration. That counts as work, right? Anyway, it was heavenly.

I'm working today on an article for City Palate on nuts (that was due 2 weeks ago, but nevermind) and am having a hard time whittling down my choice of recipes. I have to say though, I'm amazed more people don't make their own nut butters. (Not that I have myself very often... but it's the thought that counts, right?) It's one of those foods that is made more by method than recipe, and dead-easy if you know what you're doing. And all you need to know is to whiz them in the food processor until they turn into something resembling nut butter. People try it and think it's not working as they watch finely ground nuts whirl around in their machine for minutes on end; but if you're persistent, eventually the oil will emerge and it will suddenly turn creamy. The best part is, you can make butter out of any type of nut - cashews and almonds make great butters, as do hazelnuts and pecans. Or use a blend of your favorites. There's no rule that says you can't add flavors like curry and chili and chocolate to your concoctions either. Chocolate and Zucchini has a great recipe (still really only directions, but well-written).

And if you need more convincing: Studies prove that people who eat nuts regularly (for the sake of the study, this meant 1 oz, 5 days of the week) have a drastically reduced risk of heart disease and lower cholesterol. Not only do they taste good, they make you live longer. I would go so far as to declare nuts to be the world’s most virtuous food and wouldn’t be far off – John Harvey Kellogg, director of the Battle Creek Sanatorium and creator of the Corn Flake, went so far as to predict they could save the human race in his 1920 book The Itinerary of a Breakfast. Although they are all good for you, different nuts have different assets: almonds are higher in calcium, walnuts are rich in folate, cashews and pistachios have plenty of potassium and hazelnuts are exceptionally high in vitamin E. Peanuts, technically classified as a legume, contain almost twice the protein of most other nuts.

And this is what I just made for dinner, in honor of a chili cook-off for the United Way I had a fun time judging yesterday (you'd think I'd be all chili'd out for awhile):

Chipotle Peanut Pork Chili

One might argue that this isn’t really chili because it doesn’t contain beans, and I suppose they’d be right. It was inspired though by the Georgia Chili in Jane & Michael Stern’s classic cookbook Chili Nation, which doesn’t have beans either, and it still made the cut. Who am I to argue with Jane and Michael?

1 pork tenderloin
canola or olive oil, for cooking
1 small onion
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 14 oz. (398 ml) can diced tomatoes, or 2 fresh ripe tomatoes, diced
2 cups tomato sauce
1/2 cup all natural peanut butter, or 3/4 cup plain or salted peanuts
1-2 chipotles en abodo, finely chopped
1 tsp. cumin
1 tsp. coriander
salt & pepper to taste
Steamed rice, to serve overtop of

Preheat the oven to 350°F.

Brown the pork tenderloin well in a drizzle of olive or canola oil in a skillet set over medium-high heat. Pop the skillet in the oven and roast for 20 minutes, or until just cooked through.

Meanwhile, cook the onion and garlic in another drizzle of oil in a medium pot set over medium heat for about 5 minutes, or until translucent. If you are using fresh tomatoes, add them and cook for another few minutes, until softened.

Add the tomatoes, tomato sauce, peanut butter, chipotles, cumin, coriander, and some salt and pepper. If you have whole peanuts or want the chipotles blended completely into the sauce, pulse them along with the tomato sauce in a food processor until smooth, then add to the pot.
Simmer for 10-15 minutes.

Slice the pork tenderloin about 1/4" thick and add to the pot; serve over rice. Serves 4.

Half empty, or half full?

2007-09-09T20:41:00.000-06:00

I (with help!) cooked for 200 people at the Spanish Wine Festival at Willow Park Friday night - they always pull off the most fun events there, I love being part of them. It also gives me a chance to explore cuisines I might not otherwise try - I can't imagine another reason to cook exclusively in Spanish for one night.

So we had saffron meatballs, chicken and Spanish chorizo empanadas (you'd think they were being devoured by locusts), fried Panko-coated Serrano ham croquettes, chilled gazpacho shooters, and almonds, drizzled in olive oil and tossed with smoked paprika, cumin and coarse salt and roasted for half an hour - they were wonderful - among other things, but the biggest hit was the bread pudding for dessert. I was trying to come up with something different that people could eat with their fingers, and bread pudding was risky - people either love it or hate it. Those of my Dad's generation tend to associate it with times their family couldn't afford anything else, but it has total home and comfort food appeal. Besides, I figured by the time we put it out there would be so much wine on board that people would likely go for it.

Most bread puddings are heavy, made with brioche or challah, so I opted for sourdough, some baguette and some raisin bread, but kept some of the cream - it was a party, after all, and I'm sure they didn't want to be guinea pigs for my fat-reducing experiments. A few people of British descent told me the pud was better than their Mum's, so I'll consider it a success. The golden raisins soaked in Spanish brandy were a good idea - people either love or despise raisins in their bread puddding though, so best to ask first. I'm thinking too that this might be a great way to use up the bazillion apples about to fall out of my tree - chopped into chunks and tossed with the bread and raisins.

Tonight Mike's Mum and sister came for dinner, so I made a smaller version (compared to the 8 rimmed baking sheet-sized ones on Friday night) out of the leftover cinnamon buns I had in my freezer. I used whole milk instead of the cream, reduced the sugar a bit and took out a couple of egg yolks. Honestly, it was just as good as the cream-laden ones on Friday night.

Bread Pudding

This makes lots - for dinner I trimmed it down to 6 eggs and 3 cups of milk, with 3/4 cup-ish of sugar or maple syrup. It's like French toast in a bowl - I can't wait to have it one wintry morning for breakfast. (Hey, I usually have granola, berries and yogurt or whole wheat toast with natural peanut or almond butter, so back off! I can have it for breakfast once in a great while. Like before I run a marathon...)

1 ½ loaves crusty bread – I used some sourdough and some white baguette, but you could experiment
8 large eggs (or half whites, or Egg Beaters)
1 cup sugar (or less, to taste)
¾ cup maple syrup
3 cups whole milk
1 ½ cups cream (optional)
1 tsp. vanilla
1 cup dark or golden raisins (or both) - also optional, soaked in Spanish brandy or other liqueur if you like

Cut or tear the bread into 1” chunks in a large bowl. In another bowl, whisk together the eggs, sugar, maple syrup, milk, cream and vanilla. Pour over the bread and let sit for a couple hours, stirring gently once in awhile.

Pour into 1 or 2 9”x13” pans (depending on how deep you’d like them – I made them rather thin, dividing between two pans, so that squares would be easy for people to eat with their fingers.

Preheat oven to 350°F. Bake for an hour or so, until puffed, golden and set. Serve warm or cool.

* Note to self: don't attend Feast of Fields at Rouge and sample double-digit servings of food from various restaurants (unless it's all the bison gnocchi from Capo - I'm sure I could have downed 8 or 9 plates of the stuff) and wine to go with, then come home and scarf down half a casserole dish full of warm bread pudding and expect to be conscious enough to get some work done before bed.

Happy Birthday Angela!

2007-09-04T21:27:00.000-06:00

Here, have a beet cake.

I made a cake for Angela this morning, because it was her birthday yesterday. You should have seen the look on her face when she asked what kind of cake it was, and I said "beet". I might as well have brought in a bowl of gruel with cream cheese frosting. "Seriously. Beet. You made me a cake out of beets."

Well, they are all over the farmer's markets! And if you can do it with carrots, why not beets?

"Beets. You made me a beet cake for my birthday. Does it count as a vegetable then? Is it low fat?"

"What kind of icing is it." (She says this like a statement, rather than a question. The fact that the answer was cream cheese may have saved my ass.)

So yeah, I made a beet cake, but am now feeling guilty that it isn't exactly celebrational as much as cheap and healthy and Earth Mother sounding.

The batter was a violent magenta, but curiously the cakes themselves came out a golden color, with shreds of beet. (On second thought, I should have used golden beets, but whatever.) When it was still warm I sliced some off the top, just to make sure it wasn't disgusting, and it tasted like carrot cake. This morning, when it was cold and smeared with cream cheese icing, you could taste the beets. Angela ate 2 pieces and was surprised at how good it was, and I don't even think she was taking seconds just to be nice, but I'm not sure I'd make it again... maybe if I had a surplus of beets and got sick of roasting them with squash, yams, red peppers and purple onion and eating them with couscous and crumbled feta. Which would never happen. Or maybe next time I'll grate 1 carrot and 1 beet...

So here's how you make beet cake:

Grate 2 medium beets, so you have about 2 cups

Mix 2/3 cups each sugar and brown sugar with 1/2 cup canola oil and 2 large eggs. Stir in a tablespoon of vanilla and a teaspoon (or more) of grated fresh ginger. Stir in the beets.

Stir 2 1/2 cups flour (preferrably half all-purpose and half whole-wheat) with 2 tsp. baking powder, 1 tsp. cinnamon and 1/4 tsp. salt. Add half to the beet mixture, then add 1/2 cup milk, then the rest of the flour mixture. Divide between two 9" cake pans that have been sprayed with nonstick spray, or into one Bundt pan. (I can't say "Bundt" without thinking of My Big Fat Greek Wedding.) Bake for 25-30 minutes for cakes, 50 for a Bundt, until springy to the touch.

Good with cream cheese icing. Just don't make it for anyone's actual birthday.

Food Fight!

2007-08-31T16:31:00.000-06:00

Breakfast Bean Cookies!

2007-08-30T09:30:00.000-06:00

We did bean cookies on BT yesterday, and I've since received a barrage of emails asking for the recipe. If you're looking for it (or even if you're not) - here it is! Beans are packed with protein, fiber, vitamins and minerals. Pureed, you don’t even know they’re there! The result is a substantial, not-too-sweet cookie packed with fiber and protein. They have an amazingly tender texture, and they keep longer than other low fat cookies.

2 cups oats (quick or old-fashioned, not instant)
1 cup all-purpose flour, or half all-purpose, half whole wheat
1 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. cinnamon (optional)
1/4 tsp. salt
1 – 19 oz. (540 mL) can white kidney or navy beans, rinsed and drained
1/4 cup butter or non-hydrogenated margarine, softened
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 large egg
1 tsp. vanilla
1/2 cup chocolate chips, the darker the better
1/2 cup raisins, dried cranberries, chopped dried apricots, or a combination of dried fruits
1/4-1/2 cup chopped walnuts or pecans
2 Tbsp. ground flaxseed

Preheat oven to 350° F.

Place the oats in the bowl of a food processor and pulse until it resembles coarse flour. Add the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and salt and process until combined. Transfer to a large bowl.

Put the beans into the food processor and pulse along with the butter, brown sugar, egg and vanilla until smooth, scraping down the sides of the bowl.

Pour the bean mixture into the oat mixture and stir by hand until almost combined; add the chocolate chips, raisins, nuts and flaxseed and stir just until blended.

Drop large spoonfuls of dough onto a cookie sheet that has been sprayed with non-stick spray, and flatten each one a little with your hand. (I find this works best if I dampen my hands first.) Bake for 14-16 minutes, until pale golden around the edges but still soft in the middle. Transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Makes 2 dozen cookies.

Per cookie: 138 calories, 3.5 g total fat (1.4 g saturated fat, 1 g monounsaturated fat, 0.8 g polyunsaturated fat), 3.4 g protein, 23 g carbohydrate, 14.2 mg cholesterol, 2 g fiber. 22% calories from fat.

Dehydration can be a good thing.

2007-08-28T18:31:00.000-06:00

As usual, in late August I end up with far too many tomatoes on my countertop, without the gumption to jar them or make large quantities of tomato sauce to put up for the winter. It occurred to me that it must be possible to make sun-dried tomatoes in the oven, and it is! I made a batch yesterday, and they look exactly like the sun dried tomatoes you spend big bucks on at the grocery store. About halfway through, I plucked a few off the sheet and laid them on slices of garlic olive oil-drizzled Italian bread, topped them with grated part-skim mozzarella and toasted the whole thing. Yum. The roasting really intensifies and sweetens the tomatoes. They are great chopped and thrown into soup, too.

Oven Dried Tomatoes

Use roma or grape tomatoes - they are meatier and have less juice and seeds than larger beefsteak-type tomatoes. Cut the stem bit off and cut them in half, lengthwise. Place them cut-side-up on a baking sheet - on a wire rack, if you have one, which will allow the air to flow around them - and sprinkle lightly with salt. Place in the oven at its lowest setting - usually 170F-200F, and cook for 6-10 hours, until they are dry but still pliable. Some people prop the oven door open a bit with a folded dishtowel to allow the moisture to escape. Dried tomatoes can be kept in a sealed bag for up to a year, or even longer!

Real Fruit Gummies

Puree 2 lbs. of dried fruit (any kind or a combination) in a food processor with just enough hot water to make it very smooth. Spread about 1/4” thick on a rimmed nonstick cookie sheet and bake at 200 F for several hours, or at 150 F overnight, until the fruit is soft but firm with a gummy texture. Let it cool and cut into squares or little shapes with a small cookie cutter.

Real Fruit Leather

Puree a few peeled fresh peaches, nectarines or apricots in a food processor until it’s very smooth. Spread it as thin and evenly as you can on a rimmed nonstick cookie sheet, or a sheet lined with parchment or a silpat baking mat. Bake at 200 F for 3-4 hours, until dry and leathery but still slightly tacky. Peel the leather off the pan, cut it into pieces or strips, roll it up and store in a ziplock bag.

Feeding your brain.

2007-08-28T10:52:00.001-06:00

We talked about brain food on BT Edmonton last week, and on CBC the week before - that is, food that maximizes brain function. Anyone who reads this knows I am in serious need of help in that department, and if I can get help through food, all the better.

So Jonathan the science guy did some research and spoke to a dietician at the CHR and determined that the best foods for maximum brain function (I just misspelled that twice) are omega 3s, antioxidants, potassium, magnesium and B vitamins. So really, food you should be eating anyway.

When you think of omega 3s you think of salmon, right? Salmon and other fatty fish are great sources of omega 3 fatty acids. But few people know that flax seed and flax oil are also incredibly good sources of omega 3s – a teaspoon of flax oil has 2.4 g - more than a filet of salmon. And far more accessible - you can add flax or flax oil to so many things. Grind and add it to baked goods, chili, spaghetti sauce, smoothies, oatmeal, it blends right in to anything with texture. Flax oil can similarly be drizzled into so many things – smoothies, salad dressings, vegetables – and because it’s so potent, you don’t need much. Health Canada recommends a minimum of 1.1g to 1.8g of omega3 per day for healthy growth and development, so even a teaspoon gives you more than enough.

Canola oil is also a good source of Omega 3s. To compare: flax oil is 57% alpha linolenic acid (omega 3 fatty acid), canola oil is only 11%, but every little bit counts, especially if you cook and bake with it on a daily basis. (To compare, olive oil is mostly monounsaturated fat, which is the good stuff, but contains less than 1% omega 3s.) Walnuts are a good source of omega 3s too. A lot of people think they don’t like them because they taste bitter, but Michael Smith (name drop) told me once that it’s usually because they are rancid, and he's right – try fresh walnuts and you'll be amazed at the difference. When you get them home, store them in the freezer.

When it comes to the other stuff - potassium, magnesium, B complex vitamins - whole grains are the way to go. Grains are made up of 3 parts: the outer layer or husk, which remains when you consume a whole grain, is composed of a rich assortment of iron, copper, zinc, magnesium, and large amounts of B vitamins as well as fiber and plant compounds which appear to act as potent antioxidants.

Granola is a great way to get all these things into one easy-to-eat snack or breakfast, and if you add sunflower seeds, they are also excellent sources of potassium and the B vitamins. I posted my own recipe awhile back, but a local producer in Aldersyde, Alberta, Highwood Crossing, produces an exceptional organic grain, sunflower and flaxseed granola. It’s made fresh each week with certified organic oat flakes, flax and sunflower seeds, cold-pressed canola oil and maple syrup. Served with yogurt (protein) and berries (antioxidants) it makes the perfect "Brain Breakfast", and damn it's delicious. This is one of those foods that is exceptionally good for you and I also really, truly love. I should be eating it for breakfast every morning. Perhaps if I did my brain would work more better.

For lunch, I've been loving this new lentil and barley salad - all bean/grain combos are good things, being a cheap complete protein. But I discovered this summer that barley contains more than twice the fiber of even brown rice, and cooks in the exact same amount of time as dried lentils! So you can throw some of each into a pot of boiling water for 40 minutes and have a perfect base for a salad, or a perfect bean-grain blend to add to soups.

Lentil & Barley Salad

equal amounts dried lentils and barley

1 tomato or a handful of grape tomatoes, chopped or halved

a handful of fresh parsley, chopped

as much crumbled feta as you like

some finely chopped purple onion or a few green onions

Dressing:

equal parts olive oil and lemon juice or balsamic vinegar (or some of each)

1 clove of garlic, finely squished

Put the lentils and barley into a pot of boiling water and cook for 40-45 minutes, until tender; run cool water over them to stop them from cooking and cool completely. Toss everything together and chill for a few hours to give the flavors time to get to know each other.

I'm losing a lot of hats.

2007-08-27T21:07:00.000-06:00

I keep meaning to sit down and write something more meaningful than what I had for lunch today or why Mike's family drives me up the wall. I used to - I got an email months ago from someone quoting an old post and asking me to write about food addiction and weight loss struggles the way I used to, and she's right. It's on my to-do list. Right there above 'Julie Does Dinner' - the cookbook/website project I planned to launch LAST Labour Day weekend, and told everyone about so that I'd have to go through with it. And oh look, it's Labour Day again this weekend, and my to-do list looks depressingly like it did a year ago. Have years become shorter than they used to be? If 40 is the new 30, shouldn't years be longer? Or is my math as bad as it was in grade 11?

Again, do you really have an interest in reading about my time management skills, or lack thereof? Yes, less fluff.

Starting tomorrow.

A phenomenal story.

2007-08-25T16:53:00.000-06:00

Having been in Edmonton all day yesterday, I got up this morning and read Friday's Herald. I didn't get past the cover story, actually, and it has been with me all day. You can read it here.

Take note of the date and time of this post.

2007-08-23T22:44:00.001-06:00

Mike's mom just called. To ask us what we want for Christmas.
She really needs to know.

A corn revelation!

2007-08-23T18:59:00.001-06:00

I've just had a corn on the cob revelation.

About 5 minutes ago I was trying to cram 4 cobs of corn into a too-small pot; they were about to go slimy so I thought I'd better do something with them. I've always been a fan of COTC, mostly because it's such an outstanding vehicle for butter and salt. So really, I don't eat it that often.

The third cob wouldn't fit, mostly because my medium pot is in the fridge full of lentils and barley, which I'm transporting to Edmonton tomorrow. So I looked at it, wondering if it was starting to shrivel enough to justify tossing it in the garbage. I hate throwing produce away, though. Then I bit into it. I mean, why not? Other vegetables are eaten raw, why not corn?

It is unbelievable. I can't believe how cool and sweet and juicy it was, and it wasn't even the best specimen! It was icy from the fridge, and the kernels just exploded this creamy sweet juice that somehow reminded me of vanilla ice cream. Seriously. And I didn't need (or want) a bit of butter or salt on it. Next time you're shucking corn, try a bite - I devoured the whole cob over the sink and wished I hadn't been able to fit the other three into the pot!

It wouldn't be summer without a pie contest. (Not to mention Prize Potato and Biggest Chicken.)

2007-08-23T00:01:00.000-06:00

This past Saturday Willem and I went to the 100th Annual Priddis-Millarville Country Fair. It was a welcome change from Stampede - no rides, not even a merry-go-round - but plenty of chickens, ducks, roosters, cows, pigs - stages featuring elderly country bands and a charming country fair cooking and baking competition of the sort I've only seen in movies. They have been doing it the same way for 100 years, with the exception of increased entry fees (it's now $2 per class - and I spoke with a woman named Glenda who attempted 71 entries, but came up about 20 short) and a $1000 grand prize for best Saskatoon Pie this year, donated by the Cowan family in memory of Martha Cowan. This is out of the ordinary - some classes (there are 10 pages' worth) have no prize money, and others have winnings of $5 for 1st, $3 for 2nd and $2 for 3rd place.)

I half expected the women to be milling around in house dresses with their peach pie and angel food cake entries - although I did see plenty of kids walking around with a rooster under their arm, and a display labeled "Centenial Class 3500A - Largest Potato - 6-11 years". Presumably there was a younger class and an older class as well? Amazingly there is that much interest from the farming community - in the youth preserves/pickles/cooking/baking classes they managed to round up almost 300 entries. And the proud boy in the photo won the "biggest chicken contest" with his pet "Air Butt" (apparently the bird had a particularly feathery rear.)

But back to the pie - understandably, the cash prize motivated 83 people to enter their Saskatoon pies, but the winner, Emily, was only 13 years old. Since she wouldn't divulge her recipe, I told her she'd have to make a pie herself and deliver it to us at the CBC studio, which she thankfully did yesterday. 100% of pie eaters agreed it was totally yummy: just the right amount of runny juice without being soggy, thick enough without being stodgy, and a nice flaky crust.

Since she's keeping her recipe a secret, here's mine (which could be made with blueberries instead):

Saskatoon Pie

Pastry for a double crust pie (see below)

6 cups Saskatoon berries, fresh or frozen (unthawed)

1/4 cup cornstarch

1 cup sugar

2 Tbsp. lemon juice

1/2 tsp. salt
1 Tbsp. butter, cut into bits (optional)

Preheat oven to 425°F.

On a lightly floured surface, roll half your pastry (the slightly larger half, if you did it that way) about 1/8” thick, drape it over the rolling pin and transfer it to a 9” pie plate. Gently shape the pastry into the plate without stretching it and trim the edge, leaving a 1/2" overhang. Chill the shell while making the filling.

In a large bowl toss together the Saskatoon berries, cornstarch, sugar, lemon juice and salt, mound it into the shell, and dot with bits of butter.

Roll out the remaining dough and drape over the filling. Trim the pastry, leaving an inch overhang, and then fold the upper crust under the bottom crust, pressing the edge to seal and crimping it with your fingers or the tines of a fork. If you like, brush the top crust with a little milk and sprinkle with sugar. Cut a few slits in the top to allow steam to escape.

Bake for 20 minutes, then reduce the oven temperature to 375°F, and bake for another 30 minutes, or until the crust is golden and the filling bubbles through the crust. Transfer the pie to a rack and let it cool.

My Grandma’s “Quick-mix, Never-fail Pastry"

Some pie bakers swear by a teaspoon of vinegar added to their water to discourage the formation of gluten and make a tender crust, but it’s not necessary. Using all shortening instead of a combination of shortening and butter is OK too.

2 2/3 cups all-purpose flour

2 tsp. sugar

1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 cup butter, chilled and cut into pieces

1/2 cup shortening, chilled and cut into pieces

4-8 Tbsp. ice-cold water

1 tsp. vinegar (optional, stir it into the water)

In a large bowl or the bowl of a food processor, stir together the flour, sugar and salt. Add the butter and shortening and use a fork, pastry blender, wire whisk or the “pulse” motion of the food processor to blend the mixture until it resembles coarse meal, with lumps of fat no bigger than a pea.

Drizzle the minimum amount of water over the mixture and stir until the dough comes together, adding a little more a bit at a time if you need it. Divide the dough in half (making one piece slightly larger than the other), gather each into a ball and then flatten into a disc, wrap in plastic and chill it for at least half an hour. (Your pastry can be prepared up to this point and frozen for up to 4 months; let it thaw on the countertop when you need to use it.)

Pimp that food.

2007-08-20T05:45:00.001-06:00

I'm playing Food Stylist this week, for some TV spots and for a very excellent food photographer who has some big new clients and lost her old stylist. (Old as in been doing it awhile, not starting to shrivel up. Why can I not shake that old wrinkled apple image?) Doing it for TV is fun - print ads are a whole other thing. Big kits with needlenose tweezers and syringes and tiny paintbrushes are involved. And shopping at 8 different produce markets in search of that perfectly shaped, blemish-free lemon, a bazillion peppers in different colors and shapes, and plump, tight garlic heads with just the right amount of stem and crinkly bits on the bottom.

In honor of my early mornings this week, here's my friend Sue's best muffin ever. We are in eternal search of what Sue has dubbed the "non-crap muffin", and when she called and actually sent this recipe, I thought I'd better try it. Muffin recipes don't normally jump out at me, but this is really good, chewy and nubbly - a far better texture from soaking the oats than throwing them in raw. Sue uses partially dried cherries from her yearly stash she gets from her uncle in Salmon Arm and dries herself (one reason I wish we lived closer), but I have made these with raspberries and blueberries and chopped apples and cinnamon, all with great success. I even made them with peach yogurt instead of the buttermilk and chopped up peaches, and they were fantastic too.

Other notes - I have let the oats sit overnight in the fridge and they still work fine. And my baking times have been closer to 30 minutes than 20.

SUE'S CHERRY OATMEAL MUFFINS (in Sue's words)

try with cranberries, toasted pecans, and orange zest, also substitute orange juice for the ½ cup of milk

1 1/2 cup old-fashioned rolled oats
1 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup milk
1 large egg
1 large egg white
1/2 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
1/3 cup butter, melted and cooled
2 tablespoons grapeseed oil (Sue loves grapeseed - I use canola or flax oil)
fine zest of 1 lemon (optional)
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup partially dehydrated cherries, thawed

In a large bowl, combine oats, buttermilk and milk and let stand 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 400 F (375 convection), and line twelve 1/2-cup muffin tins.

Add egg, egg white, sugar, butter and zest to oat mixture, stirring until just combined.

Into another large bowl, sift together flour, salt, baking powder, and baking soda and add to oat mixture, stirring until just combined. Fold in cherries.

Divide batter evenly among prepared muffin tins. Bake muffins in middle of oven until golden and a tester comes out clean, about 20 minutes.

Makes 12 muffins.

It's a boy!

2007-08-17T14:09:00.000-06:00

Meet Trevor. He's very much alive, and accompanied W and I on a zoo trip this morning (in the stroller - turns out cup holders double as spider-holders), so we might as well give him a name. How do I know it's a boy? (It was clear which elephant was a boy this morning - and a horny one at that - yowzah!) Because he doesn't have the distinctive red hourglass on his abdomen, which apparently only young females have. I have become quite the black widow spider expert over the past few days. (Hey, find one in your basement and see how much time you spend Googling the thing.) The bad news - he has a brother or sister Mike saw DANGLING FROM THE CEILING AT THE BOTTOM OF THE STAIRS - right at face height! I thought they only lived in crawl spaces!

So, the spider guy is off until Sunday, but the other zookeeper agreed that it sure did look like a black widow. We'll go back on Sunday to confirm. Then what? Do we have to move?

Arachnophobia!

2007-08-14T23:22:00.000-06:00

We're trying to determine whether or not that is in fact a black widow spider residing in that little hole in the wall in the basement.

I Google imaged black widows, and it certainly looks like the photos that came up. We haven't been able to coax it to reveal its abdomen though, so I don't know if there are any telltale red marks. Mike tried to persuade it to turn around, but it took a ninja stance and appeared rather pissed off. The carnage of bodies in his little hole suggests he has been there awhile, and the two well-wrapped cocoons suggests he intends to stay. Or she? I hope she's not knocked up!

So what if it is? Do we call animal control? Fish and wildlife and creepy crawlies? get an exterminator to come and scare it out? Or figure that he/she is probably content where he/she is, the hole is too high for Willem to poke around in, and we'll just have to flush the odd fly down the basement to keep him/her well fed. Great. I'm really going to sleep well tonight.

And what if those cocoons aren't snacks, but egg sacks?? Maybe I'll just stay up and work for awhile...

Bison: the Other red meat.

2007-08-14T00:55:00.000-06:00

Vegetarians and vegans, avert your eyes. Images may not be suitable for all viewers. (If you're not a carnivore, go here instead.)

Last week I was fortunate enough to be invited to a BBQ on one of Carmen Creek's bison farms, and it was an afternoon I'll not soon forget: after a beautiful drive through backstreet Alberta (I now understand why we call it Big Sky country - wow) we got a tour of the ranch, including a drive right out into one of the sprawling fields, right into the herds of bison. Some were the biggest I'd ever seen, but all so calm and complacent - not easily spooked, they came right up to the truck and eyed us curiously. Then we went back to the farmhouse and Tony from Highwood Crossing grilled up rib-eye and T-bone steaks that brought tears of joy to my eyes. (I told them they should have a U-pick bison farm. Like the way you used to be able to choose the lobster for your dinner? Do they even still do that?)

What people don't realize is that bison is so much leaner than beef - it contains half the fat, and many cuts have less fat than even skinless chicken or turkey, or even halibut! The problem is, it looks like beef, tastes like beef, so people cook it like beef and it dries out. Bison shouldn't be dry. Cook it for about a third less time than you would beef. And if you're a little gunshy about doing up a bison roast or steak, try burgers (medium-rare, and handle the meat as little as possible when you mix and shape them) or use ground bison in chili, spaghetti sauce, meatballs, meatloaf... whatever you'd use ground beef for. Or braise it - low and slow is the way to go. It's not gamey. Just Try It!