Photos
Categories
Monthly Archives
Most recent entries
Syndicate |
Sunday, February 22, 2009Die, Diet Die!Shortly after my once-and-again trainer Nate returned from his fight-club adventure in Arizona, I drew the proverbial line in the sand.
“Twenty-five!” I said.
He said fine, and then told me that as far as he was concerned, it didn’t change anything that he did in the gym with me or that I did in the gym without him. I’d still be lifting as often and as rigorously, and still aiming for a few hours of cardio each week. The big thing that would change would be the amount I’d be allowed to eat each day. Down from 2,200 calories to 1,800. Which, when you calculate the nightly martinis, is more along in the lines of 1,300 calories. Period. Twenty-five. I’ve been at this for awhile. I started working out at 18. Now, 22 years later, I’m healthier than I would have been without all that effort, but I don’t quite look like someone who’s spend more than two decades regularly going to the gym. I’ve been thinner yes--back in the go-go days when I lived on the four basic food groups of happy idiots: coffee, Doritos, gin-and-tonics, and breath mints. And I’ve been much, much heavier. As 40 comes around the corner, I’d like to be in the shape of my life. I downloaded “Lose It” for my iPhone, a handy little app that makes calorie counting fast and easy. And I jiggered my schedule to make it possible to go to the gym in the mornings again, before work, when I’m less likely to be too distracted or distraught or tired to go. But the bigger lightbulb went on when I read a spice article by Jack Turner in the latest Bon Appetit. In it, he talked about how cooking with spices eased his food bill in college because his roommate would eat less of the spicier food. What an exciting idea! I’ve always believed that any nutrition plan anchored in depravation is bound to fail. The goal has now become to make incredibly flavorful foods using spices rather than fat (and just when I’d trained Honey P. to reflexively state “fat carries flavor” each time I reached for the goose fat...), eat less of it, and enjoy the hell out of every bite. I’m working primarily with three books to help me get my arms around cooking with more spices:
- The Complete Asian Cookbook, Charmaine Solomon
(The latter two were gifts from Michael, who has an uncanny sense of what I’ll love before I know myself.) Marisa recently introduced me to Dulcet Cuisine’s Moroccan spice rub. Karen at City Olive carries a nice array of specialty spices and blends as well. And thankfully, The Spice House has everything I could need for a fraction of what I’d pay at Whole Foods. Did I say 25? It’s now down to 20. And all the pretty little spices I get to taste along the way. Saturday, February 21, 2009Living La Vida LocalWe’d expected it, so it wasn’t a surprise, but what a difference a puppy (and a recession) can make. Things have been fairly quiet in our little corner--very little traveling or eating out or even taking in a show or a movie. We’re getting a lot of walking done, albeit in the same 12-block radius, and at least one person each walk will stop me to tell me how adorable our puppy is (note, I’m proud of him and only mildly resentful that he gets more attention walking around the block then I did at Big Chicks on a Friday night when I was young and dressed to thrill). It snowed again this weekend. Just when I had hoped that we’d seen the last of it for the year. It’s supposed to be in the 40s by the middle of next week, so I have hopes of seeing the front garden again soon. The occasion of snow prompted the cancellation of most all of my weekend plans in favor of nesting by the fire with a good book after throwing a braise in the oven for long and slow cooking. Honey P. wanted beef stew, so beef stew it was. I’d spent an entire winter obsessed with stew a few years back. I tried the master recipe from Cooks Illustrated and a bunch of entries from Clifford Wright’s Real Stew. Some turned out well, none turned out brilliantly. I was thrilled to recently have gotten it right. Right? Right. Meaning the gravy would be thick and not greasy, ALL of the chunks of beef would be fork-tender, and the vegetables soft but not mushy.
It’s not right for me to duplicate the beef stew recipe (and I think everyone should own that book anyway), so I won’t. But some tips:
Honey P. told me that the stew looked light something right out of one of my cookbooks. Right, is the word. Saturday, February 14, 2009In a Lumpia State of Mind
Saw my parents a few weeks back--a surprise party for my father’s 65th birthday. I helped my mom in the kitchen, as usual, but the one thing we didn’t have time to make was the lumpia. Since then, I’d been craving some. So yesterday, having a little extra time since I’d taken a vacation day, I went to the local Asian market and picked up what I needed to make a dinner of lumpia, baby bok choy sauted in garlic, shrimp panang curry, and sticky white rice. The lumpia took as long to make as I remembered (roughly an hour, from start to crispy fried), but it felt good. And it tasted even better.
Mom’s Lumpia
1. Separate the spring roll wrappers. 2. Mix the pork, carrot, celery, onion, garlic, salt, and pepper together until well blended. 3. On one end of a sheet of the spring roll wrapper, take a small helping of the pork mixture and use your fingers to spread the mixture into a long, thin, and even row. (Remember, like mom said, don’t use too much, or it won’t cook through.) Roll the sheet and seal it with a little egg yolk brushed on the other end of the wrapper. You should have just enough of the pork mixture to fill all of the sheets (usually 25) in the spring roll package. 4. Using cooking shears, cut each roll in half. You’ll end up with 50 lumpia. 5. Fry in small batches until golden brown, and drain on paper towels briefly before serving. You can eat these with sweet-and-sour sauce if you like, but I’m a purist.
Page 1 of 1 pages :
|
Favorite eSpacesFavorite ReadsEats Around the World
Local, SustainableConnect
RSS Feeds |
