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June 12, 2015

“voting with your life!” . . .

“voting with your life!” – that’s how Sally Mann has lived hers. I’ve been reading her newly published memoir called, “Hold Still: a Memoir with Photographs” and have been struck by how well she writes even though she’s known for her photography. As you may know, images of her children created an outcry years ago, due to their ease with their nudity. I’ve only read a few chapters but it’s enthralling – a refreshingly passionate book and eye-opening at the same time.

So I thought about what “voting with your life” means to me: it means showing up for the people you love when it matters most; standing by your integrity and values when the going gets rough (when doesn’t it?); and coming to peace with dying when the time comes.

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June 12, 2015

“YMCA!” . . .

Well, I finally bit the bullet and joined our local YMCA yesterday. They offer senior strength exercise classes, water walking and aquacize classes plus a “fit, functional and fun” class that are scattered throughout the week. I usually overdo anything new in the beginning and then max out, but this time I plan to start gradually and see if I can keep it up.

C. sent me this video clip of the “YMCA” to cheer me on. It was made in 1978 and is truly uplifting: the Cowboy and the Indian are my favorites!

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June 5, 2015

“million kisses!” begonia. . .

This is a lovely plant that I discovered at a farmstand in Concord, MA. this afternoon when my daughter, C. and I met for coffee and catching up.

At first glance, I thought it was a hanging fuschia plant because of the trumpet shaped flowers. When I read the plastic plant tag, it said it was a begonia, “million kisses” and I noticed that the dark underside of the green leaves and the slightly fuzzy jagged edges were indeed typical begonia leaves.

After I noticed the flowering cyclamen vine delicately making its way east and west underneath the second floor bay window the other day, I’ve found myself appreciating the flowering plants surrounding our home, both inside and outside: peonies, Japanese and otherwise, deep purple slender Siberian iris, false blue indigo, white wisteria, coral bells, a huge fringe tree with white tendrils. Inside out on our 3rd floor deck, the size of a postage stamp are a pot of kitchen herbs, three-year old poinsettia plants whose branches are getting thicker almost like bonsai trees; cyclamen of different hues, maroon oxalis with tiny pale pink flowers the size of someone’s pinky fingernails.

This begonia is in a class all its own, and I don’t even LIKE begonias per se! You know, those tuberous, big ruffled show-off flowers in ice cream sherbert colors that old people seem to favor. This is a trailing plant, a strain that produces pale, subtle watercolor hues. The shape of the flowers is ultra simple: no ruffles, doubles or flashy centers. Pale, simple trumpet shaped flowers surrounded by dark green and coppery brown edged leaves.

I just love it!

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June 3, 2015

Spring miracles . . .

Clematis “Montana – Nelly Moser” branching out under the bay window

Our Queen Anne Victorian house has a pink clematis climbing up one corner, then branches out into two lanes, one to the left and one to the right underneath a second floor bay window.

It is the FIFTH plant that has followed this pattern, the first one planted almost twenty years ago; then a bad winter befell the vine after some years and no more leaves showed up the following Spring. I planted successive ones over the next decade that either grew slowly or not at all. They were all the same color with the same species name: Clematis “Nelly Moser.”

This Spring, after the snowiest winter in Boston’s history, a climbing clematis was the furthest thing from my mind until I caught a glimpse of it this week while unloading groceries from the back of the car. Gardens and Mother Nature move along at their own pace. If we’re lucky, we may have a small hand in it now and then.

What a joy it is to see these familiar pink flowers reappear! It also reminds me that Hope Springs Eternal, even when I’ve almost forgotten about it.

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June 2, 2015

tastes, part 2! . . .

It’s been about a month now since I embarked on an immersion course to explore ways of eating to lose some weight and lower my blood glucose level. I’ve tested a panoply of new recipes including baking with gluten-free flours, alternative sugars and reading cookbooks by health gurus (Mark Hyman and Joel Fuhrman) plus “Superfood” cooking gurus such as Julie Morris and other cooking mavens.

After a three week precipitous drop in my glucose level which I was excited about, I was disheartened to find that it went up ten points after only one week of eating gluten-free muffins and gluten-free pasta, I learned the hard way that there are potentially MORE CARBS in gluten-free ingredients than in those with gluten. Moreover, honestly, the various muffins I tried tasted just awful even though the GF spaghetti was appetizing. So much for the large cardboard box of newly acquired gluten-free flours, coconut sugar, sucanet that I’ll remove from my pantry, hoping to find someone who’s gung-ho on using them.

I’ve decided that my modus operandi will be to AVOID baking anything for awhile. Period. But when the time comes, maybe in the Fall or around the holidays, I’ll make wonderful high puffed popovers and maybe a cake or pie or two. In other words, LESS (flour & sugar) might be MORE, health-wise, but it won’t just disappear from my life. And when these ingredients are called for, I’ll use unbleached regular flour and turbinado sugar – just as in the past and everything will turn out tasting delicious. And so, we’ll also know that we can continue to live a little. – just in moderation.

My brother has reminded me a couple of times that he lost ten pounds last year just by cutting out carbs and fast food. By eschewing gluten-free products, we’ll actually be cutting out carbs we didn’t realize we were using!

Another thing I discovered is that SMOOTHIES are just not my thing. It takes too many various ingredients for a single smoothie recipe; and a whole slew of other ones for a different smoothie. It also usually requires freezing a banana – and eating a whole banana (which has a lot of sugar); plus various bags of frozen fruit full of sugar which never get finished and cramp up the freezer. I also confess that I usually can’t finish the smoothie even though I make smaller portions AND it’s a nuisance to clean the blender (which can go in the dishwasher) or the Vitamix (which runs soapy water to clean it out. So, there go the packets of hemp and chia seeds and other exotic ingredients that I can’t even remember the name of them – substitutes for cocoa and so on– that will go into the same box as the gluten-free ingredients. I’m sorry that smoothies gotta go even though they look so delectable in Julie Morris’s “Superfood Smoothies” cookbook.

Although I realize I am sounding like a health food heretic, I am nevertheless now going to name the one food that has become the Holy Grail of healthy eating (even Bill Clinton!) and that is . . . KALE. I’ve tried massaging kale leaves with olive oil and/or dressing to help it absorb the flavor. I actually really like the LOOK of lacinato kale with its bumpy ridges and dark green color. I just don’t like the taste and I’ve tried it numerous ways: sauteed, in salads, in smoothies. It’s just not a vegetable that I feel compatible with. It almost feels sacriligious to type out these words: “I d-o-n-‘t l-i-k-e K-A-L-E!”

I don’t feel bad about these experiments though, because this journey is about gradually shifting our eating lifestyle to something we’ll want to keep eating.. We haven’t had any red meat in all this time and neither G. nor I have a desire to have any either. Our weekly menus have included wild caught grey sole which we enjoy simply cooked meuniere style with a little lemon butter and parsley.

Homemade vegetable soup once a week has supplied us with warm broth on chilly, rainy days as well as providing a “stone soup” concept for using up vegetables before they spoil. Making salads that are composed and attractive in a wooden bowl along with some new salad dressings have been a boon too. A fresh buttermilk peppercorn ranch dressing tops them all. To the online recipe, I increased the amount of Hellmann’s mayonnaise and sour cream, added lemon zest and a squeeze of lemon juice, a dab of honey and six grindings of multi-colored peppercorns into the mix. We thought it tasted divine, unlike the sometimes gloppy ranch dressings we’ve had in the past.

I found that drinking a large pottery tea bowl of green tea in the middle of the afternoon is a good substitute for when I’m thinking about having a snack.

So, there it is: I’ve bought tons of baking and smoothie ingredients, read books and experimented with numerous recipes that have drawn me to these very personal conclusions: I’ll bake less often but when I do, I’ll use regular ingredients; I won’t be making smoothies in the near future but will use my blenders to process delicious cream of cucumber soup and other dishes. And finally, I’ll pass up buying lacinato kale and maybe even collard greens. But I’ll still fill up my basket with broccoli, cauliflower, English peas, romaine, arugula and butter lettuces, mushrooms, brussels sprouts, eggplant, artichokes and garden fresh spinach. We’ll wait until the cool Fall and Winter months to bake Japanese sweet potatoes, acorn squash and other starchy root vegetables.

I’m still feeling optimistic after these lessons learned. Unless we enjoy what we eat, a new lifestyle of eating won’t last for very long. I can’t just follow recipes of food that don’t appeal to our palate. And some of the recipes have long lists of ingredients that require more effort than the simple way that I like to cook. The tweaking I’ve described above feels good to me although they might not be for everyone. And I feel a little lighter now that I don’t feel forced to conform to foods (and fads) that don’t taste or feel right for the way we live and the way I like to cook.

Bon Appetit! To each our own!

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May 27, 2015

tastes . . .

I feel like I’ve been on a quest for Jason’s golden fleece these past few weeks. You know, go out and rescue yourself by seeking a noble impossibility. Well, it hasn’t been that bad but there have been a lot of dead ends. Expensive too when considering a new pantry of ingredients, some of which I’m not sure I’ll use again. But, that’s what trial and error means, I guess.

As described in the past few posts, I’ve gone from one extreme (foodie Paleo) to another (strict Vegan) and come out somewhere in the middle: “Pegan.” However, the one guiding principle that I intuitively adhere to during this wayward journey is that if the food doesn’t taste good to my palate and it isn’t something that I truly like to eat, then, it’s a wayward journey and not one that will be sustainable. It’s like travelling on vacation somewhere and you just don’t like the cuisine. Even if it’s good for you, you won’t keep wanting to eat it.

So.

Today, a volume in my bookshelf caught my eye called “Crisp” published by Marie Claire, the magazine. It’s a beauty to look at with imaginative, many Asian-inspired recipes for simple bites of delicious looking, light fare. Given what I’ve learned in the past few weeks, sugar and flour can be substituted with agave nectar or stevia and I now have gluten-free flour in the pantry. Most of the recipes are fresh vegetables and small amounts of protein. The difference between this approach and “Eat to Live” (Joel Fuhrman’s cookbook) for example, is that it doesn’t feel medicinal or health-food-like at ALL. It also doesn’t require a five inch list of ingredients either.

“Crisp” is beautifully photographed, contains few-ingredient recipes, and approaches healthy foodie in a good way. Finally. A “Pegan-Foodie” blend that doesn’t break the bank when going to Trader Joe’s. I am going to wait a few days to go to ANY grocery store until there’s more room in the fridge now containing kale, collard greens, zucchini, broccoli.

Tonight, I’m going to try a recipe from Julie Morris’s book, “Superfood Kitchen” for supper: zucchini “linguine” with onions, dulse (seaweed) and walnuts. A salad of butter lettuce, english cucumber and red onions with a ginger vinaigrette.

That sounds good, doesn’t it?

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May 25, 2015

“the three bears”? . . .

Do you remember that children’s story, Goldilocks and the Three Bears? When she tried out the furniture in the house, one chair was too big, another was too small and the third one was “just right.” That’s how my quest for an ideal way to eat has gone: first, the Paleo diet with high protein and vegetables by Mark Hyman was “too big” because it allowed lots of luxury foodie type foods. Then, Joel Fuhrman’s strict diet of a vegan, all vegetables and no animal protein was, well, “too small” in the sense that it was so austere, it soon became hard to stick with. Plus, I noticed that the glossy sheen of my hair had disappeared and looked dry and dull instead after only a week of no eggs and butter.

What to do? I decided to add back a little protein especially since I missed farm fresh organic eggs and turkey bacon for breakfast. Fresh caught grey or dover sole may be my favorite dinner so I added that back in. I haven’t really craved other meats like beef, lamb or veal nor even chicken of late. Fresh fish and organic eggs plus some nice sliced prosciutto or ham for lunch was enough savory protein to balance out a high vegetable content diet. This past week, eating like this felt “just right.”

Imagine my surprise when I searched online how to reconcile the Hyman Paleo and Fuhrman Vegan diets, only to find articles about a “Pegan” diet! Yep, it’s a combo of a little protein combined with a primarily vegetarian approach to food with the addbacks of eggs and fish.

So, without knowing it, this compromise between a rather rich diet (Paleo) with the very rigid diet (Vegan,) it seems that the old adage, “the best of both worlds” has now been blessed by the diet gurus. Meanwhile, I kind of groped my way here because of how my hair had dulled and my preference for a high protein breakfast rather than a fruit one. I’m not really sure how much fruit is really allowed anyhow when trying to lower one’s blood glucose level. A handful of fresh blueberries after dinner seems like a middle-of-the-road way to go between the two extremes.

Settling into a routine of smaller portions overall and drawing from a prudent combo of eggs, butter, fish (animal protein) plus cruciferous (broccoli) and green leafy vegetables (kale, chard, spinach, collard greens) with small helpings of berries, nuts and seeds might be a “pegan” approach to eating healthy for us. I guess the only thing to do is to wait and see.

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May 22, 2015

scrumptious? . . .

Here’s a scrumptious looking cookbook for superfood snacks such as “chocolate mint truffles” and “pomegranate salsa.”

http://www.amazon.com/Superfood-Snacks-Delici…/…/ref=sr_1_1…

Also found an eggplant color mini-muffin pan on Amazon to make non-gluten, low sugar bites of zucchini-carrot-golden raisins, pumpkin gingerbread or fresh corn.

Who knew that getting healthy could be this much fun?

P.S. and here’s a photo of flowers from our Japanese tree peony which is almost twenty years that grew from a $3. plant from Spag’s here in town.

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May 20, 2015

soup! . . .

Yesterday, I made a simple vegetable soup (onions, celery, carrots, broccoli and diced tomatoes simmered in homemade chicken stock from the freezer) that we shared with G.’s mother and brother across the street at lunchtime. It was a warming treat during a grey, drizzly, cool day. Today, I was thinking about how meager our lunch choices were and thought about making the soup again. Instead, I looked around and discovered some fresh spinach that was looking a little sad but still good, so I looked online for a spinach soup recipe and found one that incorporated a sweet potato too!

We love Japanese sweet potatoes but I’ve been avoiding them for awhile to adhere to the “no starchy vegetable” guidelines of the eating regimen that I’ve been following. However, I thought bending the rules to add one would be all right, especially since the recipe looked and sounded so scrumptious. I was also looking for a recipe that avoided adding cream or milk to a creamy spinach soup, wanting to use almond milk instead. This recipe fit the bill perfectly,

Since I’m meeting my daughter, C., for dinner tonight, (we’re celebrating by ordering Peking Duck in the same restaurant that we went to when she got her first job in high school! – imagine that!) There will be enough soup for G.’s dinner to enjoy here at home by himself tonight too.

Some things stay the same (like the Chinese restaurant still open after thirty years in the same location!) while recipes made with sweet potato and almond milk offer new approaches to cooking healthy!

The more things change, the more we can still find ways to savor our time together, right?

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May 17, 2015

changeover . . .

Sometimes I find myself going whole-hog to do something and then read something which stops me in my tracks. Then, it’s time to change the original plan. Talk about change being the only constant in the Universe!

In my reading about how to lower blood sugar levels FAST, I first read Mark Hyman’s “Blood Sugar Solution” book with a claim that he was a consultant to Bill Clinton. His regimen was basically a stricter Paleo diet: protein for breakfast, salads and greens, a 1-3 ratio of protein to green leafy vegetables for dinner. Two snacks of nuts, seeds or something low-glycemic. No problem! I diligently made a table of what to avoid and what to eat with sample breakfast, lunch and dinner menus which I put on the fridge as a guideline.

I forgot that I had also ordered a used copy of Joel Fuhrman’s book, “The End of Diabetes.” It arrived yesterday and I almost didn’t want to read more after immersing myself in Hyman’s books last week. But when I picked up Fuhrman’s book, he gave case histories with actual numbers and DATA of people whose blood sugar readings plummeted after a WEEK, and significant weight loss within weeks and months! One 80-year old woman’s weight went from 148 to 110 over a few months. After ten days, she was taken off insulin, something she had used for twenty years! A fellow weighing 268 pounds lost 16 pounds in two weeks and was off insulin and medication in five months after losing sixty pounds! Numbers and data are compelling, aren’t they? So there was no stopping me from reading about his diet regimen which departs radically from a modified paleo diet (which afforded all sorts of luxuries as a foodie.)

“The End of Diabetes” is achieved by eating vegetables. That’s it. Fuhrman makes the argument and shows data that vegetable protein (who knew?) was just as healthy as animal protein. The most drastic weight loss and glucose drops occurred in people who followed his “nutritarian” diet: cruciferous vegetables (broccoli, kale, collard greens, etc.) non-starchy vegetables (tomatoes, eggplant, artichokes, avocadoes, lettuces, watercress); low-sugar fruit light portions: melons and berries; an ounce of nuts and seeds daily, and you can eat all the raw vegetables you want. THREE meals a day, NO SNACKS, especially after dinner. Because blood sugar is highest in the morning, he advises that you eat a very light breakfast of fruit or lightly cooked VEGETABLES! I also read that drinking an ounce of pomegranate juice lowered atherosclerosis and reduced artery plaque over the course of a year!

After I read the book, I tore up the first table I had so carefully constructed and devised a different way to approach my health. Mainly, I wanted to make a substantive effort (lose weight, lower readings, feel better, be more active) that would correct and reset my well-being meter once and for all.

So, yesterday for breakfast, I had a piece of tofu cut into cubes with a little oyster sauce dabbed on top of it. Delicious and satisfying! I boiled up a cup of frozen edamame soy beans from Trader Joe’s and ate them alongside. Instead of coffee for awhile, I’m sipping mugs of boiled water poured over a fresh lemon wedge. Poured a half glass of pomegranate juice to take my supplements with.

Last night for dinner, G. and I weren’t very hungry after having some nibbles at a recital that we went to in the afternoon. Plus, I had cheated by eating some Medjool date halves stuffed with Boursin cheese (a scrumptions combo of sweet and salty.) When I got home, I read that dates are low-glycemic fruit and okay to eat which was a relief. So for our evening meal, we sliced up a half of a ripe cantaloupe and ate the melon with handfuls of fresh blueberries, raspberries and dry roasted almonds. It was satisfying and refreshing. We also didn’t feel hungry afterwards and felt lighter this morning when we woke up.

Since I love to cook, I’m thinking of dishes to make that are appetizing that fit into the “nutritarian” guidelines. It’s hard, I’ve found, to eat other people’s recipes for very long. So far, I’ve come up with fresh spinach stuffed portabello mushrooms; cabbage, apple and walnut salad with a creamy macadamia salad dressing; eggplant parm without the ricotta, using fine gluten-free panko crumbs (yes!); spiraled zucchini “noodles” with shrimp scampi; vegetable soups made with onions, carrots, celery, cabbage and stewed tomatoes similar to macrobiotic recipes I’ve made in the past. I bought some Mrs. Dash’s seasoning that contains no salt and put my Maldon sea salt and Lawry’s garlic salt away.

I’ve also visualized the difference between eating the old way and the new way. In the former, a body is warm or (very) hot in the sense that all of our organs are being fed too much rich, heavy food all the time so that one’s physical infrastructure (organs, blood vessels, nerves, glands and muscles must work hard to process full tilt on an ongoing basis – like an engine that’s revved up and going 80 miles an hour, driving on highways all day long.

With vegetables, your liver, pancreas and your endocrine system go on vacation, so to speak, because they’re not asked to do so much. Your engine is idling in the driveway or just cruising down a shady lane at 20 miles an hour. So when your body system is cooled off from all that over-exertion, and then you add some exercise, such as brisk walking or going up and down flights of stairs, it gets your heart pumping and the cooled body is flushed out by more oxygen going through your pipes (and arteries.) Anyhow, that’s how I’ve imagined it to myself. Makes sense to me, at least and an added incentive to “cool things down.” Is that what they mean when they say, “chill out!”?

The only trouble with having so much more energy is that I don’t know what to do first today: take my walk, hang out the sheets on the clothesline, start picking up and vacuuming, clean out the freezer and pantry or cut up the strawberries and rhubarb to make a compote that I can eat for breakfast or lunch later.

Maybe I’ll pace myself and read some of the New York Times newspaper first. The Universe is taking good care of things (including Helpers) and it’s good to remember we can also give ourselves a break, to smile and to enjoy the day. Especially on a Sunday morning! Here’s to enjoying the day!

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