Ho-kay. I’ve been diving down rabbit holes all over the place this morning as I try to come to some conclusions about these rather weird substances called “sugar alcohols” or “polyols,” with the most commonly used ones being sorbitol, xylitol, and erythritol. Can you just buy a bag of a powdered polyol and put it in the place of sugar in your pantry and your food? Is that change going to make you into the person of your dreams? Well, sigh, as is so often the case, the answer is no.
How many times have you heard a person say, “My wellness counselor . . . “ or “My nutritionist . . . “ and then inform you that s/he can’t eat dairy, or gluten, or some other harmless-unless-you-have-a-diagnosed-condition substance? Quite a few, I’d guess. So you might ask, “What does a nutritionist actually know about nutrition? Or a wellness counselor about health? Are there any qualifications that these people are required to have?”
I wrote an earlier post on the whole idea that sugar is sugar is sugar, dealing with maple syrup, honey, and molasses. At some point I want to write about more of these sweeteners, including agave nectar and brown rice syrup, so stay tuned for that. I also want to deal with what I call “sugaroids,” substances that contain sugar plus something else (alcohol! chlorine!) but since they are not “real” sugar, and since they contain fewer calories than sugar, items made with them can be labeled “sugar free.” This is the type of thing that, like so many other weird dietary ideas, makes me want to tear my hair out. But for now I want to talk about another hair-tearer: the infamous glycemic index. As you might guess (to quote my son when he was a toddler), “I don’t wike dat.” The whole idea is so misguided, and has led to so many people refusing to eat perfectly healthy food, that I think it’s worth a post. (And yes, it should be “healthful” food, but cut me some slack.)
I’m not a vegan myself nor do I plan to ever become one, but it’s an interesting challenge to have a vegan guest for dinner. My friend Aubrey had made some vegan chocolate tartlets last year for our church Christmas party and I just about passed out when I ate one of them. Astonishing! I couldn’t believe that it didn’t have any butter or eggs in it. So I set out to reproduce this experience as part of our desserts for my sister-in-law’s birthday dinner on Dec. 30 since a vegan friend of hers was coming, and I found one online that sounded pretty good. The original was also gluten free, but I had no need for that and didn’t want to buy tapioca starch and sweet rice flour. I can’t stand being told that I need some specialty ingredient but only a small amount! The original called for only two tablespoons of the tapioca flour, so I’d be buying a whole bag that would then sit on my pantry shelf. But one item that the recipe does call for and which you should always have on hand is tahini, that is, sesame-seed paste. I’ve bought high-end tahini through the mail (and paid a pretty high-end price), but actually I like the stuff you can find at the grocery store just fine. Tahini and chocolate are an inspired combination.
I spent some time in my previous post talking about what it really means to respect food and its role in our lives. The topic of respect for people is much broader and somewhat beyond the scope of this blog, but since I plan to work on the concept for the year I’ll make a stab at it. Here are some brief thoughts:
Of course, I’m poaching unashamedly from Gretchen Rubin and Liz Craft, as they discussed their words for the year on yesterday’s “Happier podcast. Gretchen’s word is “infrastructure;” Although it’s kind of a boring word in and of itself, perhaps, she’s using it in the sense of “support systems,” as she’s very bad at delegating and she needs to do less work that others can do. Liz’s is “lighter,” and she’s taking that word in both of its meanings: her weight and her attitude. Liz’s word leads Gretchen to quote once again G. K. Chesterton’s aphorism “It is easy to be heavy, hard to be light.” (One of my 2020 reading goals has to do with Chesterton; more on that in a later post.)
As I listened to the two sisters I realized that I had a word right there, ready for use, as I’ve been interested in the concept of respect for a long time. Indeed, the word shows up in the title of this blog, and when I give talks about the proper place of food in our lives I spend some time talking about what I mean by it in that context.
Hi folks! Today is Christmas Day. I started this post two days ago, but company and outings and cooking interrupted me. Probably no one is going to read this post until tomorrow, but if you do get to it today—Merry Christmas! You can think of this as a holiday grab-bag.
First, an idea articulated by my husband, one of those blindingly-obvious statements that never occurs to anyone:
One of the reasons why you had less trouble with your weight as a child then you do now as an adult is that children aren’t in control of what food is available. Adults are.
Hi everybody! My last post was before Thanksgiving, with a promised post-mortem on the meal. I’m afraid I’ve let events get the better of me on that, so here are some thoughts on TG and also some projections into the future:
1. Dry brining is the way to go with any type of meat. I would refer you to a massive Serious Eats manifesto on this subject: “Dry brining Is the Best Way to Brine Meat, Poultry and More.” I did something along their lines for my turkey breast at Thanksgiving and it came out quite moist and delicious. I also dry-brined some steaks recently and they were, like, totally awesome–flavorful with a great crust.
Just a thought. As I sit here late Tuesday afternoon my mother-in-law and I have done some menu simplification. We’ve ended up having only 11 people (and we’re happy to see all of them, of course), and so in the end Jan was the voice of reason and said, no, we didn’t really need a turkey plus a turkey breast, plus three kinds of gravy, plus two kinds of stuffing. We have one vegan guest and I want to have items she can eat, so that’s a nice challenge. Here’s what we’re having, with links to recipes that are linkable:
Great breakfasts around here this week! Remember the principle that you frontload your day, eating a hearty breakfast and then a lighter lunch and an even lighter dinner, with no evening snacking. This morning I threw together a rather complicated crustless quiche that used up most of a container of spinach that I had foolishly bought last week and the rest of an opened log of goat cheese. I will point out that soft goat cheese is richer and tangier than regular cream cheese—as well as being more expensive, of course. But I buy mine at Costco, and although it comes in a two-pack I think the unopened log will stay good for a while. So I found a recipe this morning for “Quick and Easy Spinach Quiche,” using fresh spinach instead of frozen (because that was what I had) and goat cheese for the cream cheese (ditto). And I didn’t have a pastry shell sitting around, all rolled out and ready to go, so that wasn’t in the mix. I just sprayed the pie pan with Pam and sprinkled panko breadcrumbs into it, sautéed the onions until browned and then added the chopped-up spinach and cooked until it wilted, let that cool while I crumbled up the goat cheese into the pie pan, mixed up the milk and eggs, and grated the cheese (which happened to be Gouda but could be cheddar or any other flavorful grating cheese). Everything went into the pan and it baked for about 45 minutes at 3250. I realize that not everyone has that kind of time in the mornings, but I like to get up early and can put together somewhat elaborate breakfasts. Jim and I ate about half of it.