Archive for the ‘FoodLife’ Category
Just made a pan of brownies and read the fine print on the box:
For cakelike brownies, use three eggs.
Isn’t the point of brownies to make brownies and not cake? If I wanted chococlate cake, can I make brownies with one less egg? Just curious.
Still working out, if anyone cares. Jogged twice, third time tomorrow. Lifting weights…gonna hit that class reunion ready to wow. And to eat!
I’m not rational. I view the world through the lens of a girl who went to prom in a size 14, not a 4 or 2 like the rest of my friends. Today, while lounging by the pool, I started thinking about things I obssess on which I doubt most skinny girls ever contemplate.
In no particular order:
1. Snapping a diving board in half with one bounce
2. My pants splitting down the back when I bend to pick up a pencil in front of the 7th grade class. Those kids are mean.
3. Spanx going bankrupt. Don’t even joke about that one.
4. Extinction of sprinkle trees in the rainforest with the growth of global warming.
5. Scales at the BMV. Nothing worse than the notion of putting your actual weight on your driver’s license.
More to come. These are just the big ones.
Granted, it’s a pound less than the last time, but 10 more pounds than I started the school year with, and 20 more pounds than when I felt really good.
Don’t worry, this isn’t one of those “If a train leaves Chicago going east at 800 mph and a train leaves Boston going west at 740, where will they meet?” questions. (I hate math. Passionately.) Rather, it’s a lament on the fact that I’ve worked out for a solid week, am attempting to eat better (save the 3pm jinx..read more about that yesterday) and the only thing I’m losing is time I might otherwise spend napping by lifting weights.
I like to imagine it’s because my muscles have grown so much in 7 days that they’re equalling the fat I’ve burned (muscle does weigh more than fat, kids!) but it’s more likely that I’m not working as hard as I could to shed the pounds.
Why does it matter so much now? Class reunion. In a little over a month.
Mind you, I’m not one of those obsessive types that worries about social gatherings. I was happy to be able to squeeze this ass into a pair of nicely tailored, albeit fat-girl pants and a pretty top for this gathering of people I can’t wait to see (I’m weird. Love class reunions. Small school, lots of fun. And a little like a family reunion of sorts). I’m less about the dress size and more about the memories.
That was, until mom called and laid down a challenge. One of my friends from school who still lives near mom dropped off a birthday present for me a few weeks ago at mom’s, so when she called she mentioned it. Our conversation went something like this:
“M. stopped by today to drop off your birthday present. She looks great.”
“Really? Do you have any idea what it might be?”
“No, but she looks amazing. Her hair is really long and straight, she had on this cute…”
“Mom, the present. Focus with me. What does it sound like? Is it Bath and Body Works? Something Ohio State?”
“It’s got beautiful wrapping. And her skirt was so cute. She looks like she’s lost weight. And her glasses…oh, how adora…”
“The present? Just unwrap it and tell me what it is so I can send her a thank-you note.” (Because I don’t want to come home if you’re going to tell me how skinny and pretty my friends are BEFORE my class reunion. You’re MY cheerleader, not theirs). “Go unwrap it.”
Unable to resist the siren’s call to unwrap a present, mom padded off to the front closet while I plotted and planned. At the time, it was almost two months to the day of the reunion, so I had +/- 60 days to drop 20 pounds. As I scratched out some kind of division problem on my notepad ( I didn’t know what number went under the bracket so I had to do a few trial and error runs), mom came back to the phone.
“Great stuff. Bath and Body Works and a Buckeye thingie.” While she attempted to describe the presents, I finished the math. Long division short, it was too little time in which to whittle myself into the body I envisioned but a really good reason to start. Or get serious, as the case may be.
Which is why this number is frustrating. It’s 3 more than I started with a few weeks ago and I’m exercising. One of my pet peeves is people who scale-obsess, and I will not turn into that beast. But it doesn’t change the fact that I don’t know where the hell this number came from. Maybe God is a practical joker. Maybe the scale is out of whack. Or maybe I need to step up the exercise and shake my booty a little faster to get it moving in the right direction.
Whatever–I don’t ever want to see this number on my scale again. Time to get serious.
The problem every time I diet is 3. Yes, you read that right. 3 is the problem.
It seems, after years of research conducted by me and the junk food industry of America, 3pm is some type of mystical witching hour over which I have little to no control. Each day, 3pm arrives with minimal fanfare (which is good, because it’s quiet. My students are gone for the day) except the blaring of Bugles (the crispy kind) and Pretzel Proclamations. I have zero ability to resist the Call of the Wild blueberry muffins in my freezer or pass up invitations from Mayor McFry to hit the drive through on my way home. (It’s not even really on my way home).
From 4:30 in the morning til 3pm, I’m the patron saint of control. Really. I don’t always plan healthy breakfasts but I end up stashing one away in my lunch bag to eat at school before the kids arrive. I have been really diligent about getting a healthy lunch together in said bag as well. I’ve only been out for lunch once in approximately a month and a half–which is a major coup considering the girl at Arby’s and I were on a first-name-on-the-debit-card basis. But when 3 comes, all hell breaks loose. I even have reasonable, healthy snacks at home, but I eat too many. I get in this frenzied state of…tomorrow the world will end…must pack on pounds to survive winter conditions…or…tonight there will be a rush on Twinkies and I must eat every one in the box now to keep my family safe…or something equally inane.
I believe this is mental conditioning…at its worst. I don’t think healthy snacks are the answer. I’ll just eat more of them. I need to figure out some meaningful way of spending that dead zone of time between after school and dinner so that no food comes within a 50 mile radius of my mouth. Hmmm…I’m up for suggestions.
Yesterday, in an effort to rouse the boy from sleeping at a time when most people are already up and mowing the lawn, I yelled downstairs to ask if he’d like some breakfast.
When a suprising “yes” confirmed his interest in eating as well as his actual state of being in the land of the living, I realized I didn’t really have anything remotely healthy to make. I conceded by taking a tube of Pillsbury cinnamon rolls out of the fridge.
I unwrapped the tight, silvery paper and set them on the counter for a mere four seconds while I preheated the oven. As I dialed in the temp (love my convection microwave), a loud “POP!” shattered the silence and startled me.
My first reaction was to look at my jeans. I’d popped a button once before, on a pair of brown dress slacks, and was familiar with the drill: pull down the shirt, find a jacket and some safety pins and hunker down behind a desk for 8 straight hours. In retrospect, it was a humiliating experience but I was fortunate it had been the front and not the back blown out. Lucky for me, I was home and could change before anyone noticed.
Convinced I’d blown the button and it’d dented (or worse, chipped) my stove, I felt around for evidence. Nothing.
Still curious, I set the oven temperature and went back to my tube of cinnamony goodness to discover the roll of rolls had popped itself. Instead of a perfect cardboard cylinder, doughy bits now squirted free of their squished situation, puffing through the grease-spotted cardboard seams. I just nodded and smiled sympathetically as I twisted the can to let the little ones out of their confinement. I have more in common with Poppin’ Fresh than most people know–and I’m not talking the giggle when he gets poked.
I did and I feel fab. Gonna be a bit sore tomorrow, and I only lifted 5-15 pounds for all of the workout but I stuck with it from warmup to cooldown.
I even ate pretty well today. The good news is that I weighed in at one less pound today than yesterday (231 to 230, don’t get used to it. Daily weigh-ins are about as sadistic as locking myself in a room with Rachael Ray reruns looping 24/7). By “well” I mean four mini-Snickers instead of half a bag and half a donut (!)(it’s the first sign of the apocalypse) from the stash my friend brought to school. My other meals were really reasonable: fruit & yogurt with coffee for breakfast, 3 squares of leftover veggie (as in cream cheese, not real pizza) pizza and a diet soda for lunch, risotto and stir fried chicken for dinner.
I’ve got the meal part down, it’s the in-between times that do me in. Now that I’m filling them with some type of metabolically stimulating activity, let’s see where we end up.
E-Day. The thing I hate most in the weight-loss effort (though if I want to sustain it, I probably should change my mindset and not hate it).
Exercise.
For me, it’s as impossible to lose weight without exercise as it is for me to fit into single-digit size clothing. My last huge success (I’ve had smaller ones since), which took place back in the days when big hair made me appear thinner (it’s coming back someday! I can’t wait!) was a result of jogging and weight lifting on a regular basis. Regular meaning more than once a fortnight, for my British readers.
I’m not going with one set program. I like the idea and buy all types of infomercials that promise me one simple way to drop the weight, but the truth is, they bore me out of my mind. This time it’s a combination of ChaLean Extreme (I admit I do LOVE weight lifting. Not as much as I love eating frosting from a tub but it’s all in your perspective, but enough to stick with it a month or two at a time), yoga (another love), walking and occasional jogging (hate). Maybe the synergy of the weights and yoga will conspire with the jogging in my brain to bring it over to the light side.
Anyone have any tricks or tips to make me like jogging, other than the weight loss? I’m up for suggestions…
Nothing to do with weight loss, either. Nothing happening on that front, unless you count my passing up pizza and cake today at lunch in honor of teacher appreciation day. Of course, I appreciated myself with a handful of mini Twix when I got home to make up for the fact that I held strong against the pizza and cake.
No, my observation is about Giada on the Food Network. (I know her last name but don’t know how to spell it). I’m just curious about the amount of cleavage the girl is showing while cooking. Although I really like some of her recipes, the twin valleys are honestly annoying. When did the quality of a cooking show depend on how low your blouse goes?
Obviously she’s never cooked bacon with me. I believe in high heat and fast cooking with no splatter guard. One bacon session with me and the resulting painful splatters would cure her of hanging over her marinara with the twins bounding about. I’m pretty sure it would, anyway.
Maybe my spaghetti will taste better if I wear the Wonderbra. It’s worth a shot…
Most people mark the milestones and memories of their lives in terms of events: first kisses, graduations, job promotions, marriages, births, deaths…the list is as endless as those happenings with which humans associate meaning.
I, on the other hand, measure my days and decades by recalling what diet I was on when something happened. Junior prom, cabbage soup. Wedding, hi carb/low fat . Post pregnancy, low carb/no fat. First job, Slim in 6. Second job: Atkins. Third job: South Beach. Grad school graduation…
You get the idea. If a diet has been created or even hinted about, I’ve been on it. I can’t remember a time after 7th grade, when I was one of two size Ls on the order form for volleyball shorts, that I wasn’t looking for some mystical, magical way to lose weight.
Actually, I can. The last three weeks I’ve been dietless and feeling a strange, unfamiliar longing for food boundaries to break. The boys went to Florida three weeks ago and left me alone to purge my soul with half-a-dozen cream-filled babies from Jolly Pirate. The week after, Vegas. From that point til now, it’s amazing I haven’t gnawed off the finger of some innocent bystander along the way. I need food structure.
I’ve been contemplating going back on the diet wagon. I even know which one I’ll follow (Flat Belly Diet by Prevention, again). I even have thoughts of planned exercise and exertion to help aide my efforts. I just hadn’t figured out that perfect starting point, until this weekend.
I turned 38 on Saturday. That’s pretty close to 40. No, I didn’t realize this until my birthday dinner at the Cheesecake Factory. Somewhere between the end of the Chicken Marsala and the beginning of the Lemon Raspberry cheesecake, my mental gears clicked into action and the subtraction was finished. Every day past 38 is one day closer to 40. Maybe it was something in the Marsala sauce* that sharpened my rusty-dull math skills, but 40 kind of freaks me out. Is that middle age?
Lost in whipped cream mounds (the boy doesn’t eat his. I swear he’s adopted), I decided that I want to hit 40 with a body I’ve never had. Something in a size 10 (or, god forbid, an 8, please.) I’ve never been in single digit sizes, unless you count that brief interlude of time where I started at 6X and ended at ten, bypassing everything in between. I think that was 4th grade, but I digress…
So, long story short, I’m back on the diet wagon. This time, I’m hoping public humiliation, aka blogging, will help shame me into doing what I know I’ve got to do to lose this flab once and for all. If not, Jolly Pirate is on my way home….
*must get that recipe…after diet succeeds, of course
Growing up in a small town (with equally small grocery stores 8 miles away), there wasn’t a whole lot of food adventure going on in mom’s kitchen (unless you consider the times she and dad went to town and my sis and I used that time for our own kitchen kamikaze antics. More on that another time…). There wasn’t anything even remotely unMidwestern in the kitchen except an occasional soy-based veggie patty or faux oriental stir-fry seasoning packet.
After getting married and moving to the city, I was given an amazing gift: cable TV and the Food Network. From the comfort of my living room, I could learn about food, cultures and everything culinary around the world. I started getting one or two new food items each time I went to the grocery store for a bit of variety and found lots of terrific tastes.
One of my absolute favorites–one I can no longer live without–is capers. So simple in appearance yet so amazingly flavorful, I love them so much I have been known to eat them straight from the jar. While I prefer my brine more salty than vinegary, the way I really love them is fried.
It’s hard not to like anything fried, but even the most anti-caper soul has to love the crispy-salty-slightly smoky taste of capers quick-fried in a beautiful mixture of brown butter and golden olive oil. I just fried about half a bottle and have a craving for the rest…like to join me?
Fried Capers
1-2T capers, drained on folded paper towel
1-2T butter
1T olive oil
Heat butter and oil in a small skillet at scorching high heat. When butter begins to brown, add capers and stir briskly until capers pop open and soak up the butter/oil as they crisp. When most of the butter is gone and the caper buds blossom, drain for a moment on a paper towel. Make a double batch to start with…you won’t want to share!
Excellent on pan-fried chicken breast, grilled fish or eaten right off the paper towel.