15 posts tagged “food”
Last week was the annual Festival of the Arts here in Oklahoma City. Ken and I went down on Thursday evening to look at the art and eat too much food. Granted, most of the recipes have been watered down and Americanized for the masses and, of course, things were prepared way ahead of time to serve to the huge crowds, but overall it's fun and the money does go to worthy causes. This year Ken and I shared a Philly Cheesesteak sandwich (not up to Philly standards I'm sure) and a Beef Empanada with Sweet Potato Fries. Both were worth the money. For dessert Ken wanted the Tequila Bread Pudding (I can't stand bread pudding) so I had the Bananas Foster. They started off with what appeared to be a lenthwise quarter of a banana wrapped in dough and deep fried. That was topped with several slices of banana, the "Foster", and soft serve vanilla ice cream. The banana slices were raw, hard, and green. They should have been omitted from the dish. Other than that it was pretty good (of course, it was all prepared ahead of time and served without the floor show). Our first round of beer came from one of the usual drink tents and was just Budweiser on tap. Later we found a tent that was selling specialty beers by the bottle. I had one called Happy Hops. I liked it.
Three years ago Ken purchased a lithograph for me that I fell in love with. It hangs in our dining room. The work was done by a husband and wife team (Jan and Mel Fleck), but the wife died a couple of years ago. This year Mel had some copies of a companion to this piece that was actually made prior to this one. It features number systems that use letters to represent the numbers (think Roman numerals). When cleaning and straightening the studio earlier this year he ran across about 20 copies that had been put back for some reason. I was really tempted to buy that piece, but I have no room to hang it so I passed.
A little later on we came to a booth that has inspired the quilter in me. This booth featured wooden platters and vessels that have been turned on a lathe. The pieces that captured my imagination were the platters that have inlays of thousands of Czechoslovakian glass beads. I immediately pictured quilts done in hexagonal English paper piecing using photographs of snowflakes for the design source. You can see more examples of this amazing work here.
Today for lunch I had some grapes and a pepperoni roll. While growing up I got pepperoni rolls as a special treat during the summer only when visiting my grandparents in Clarksburg, West Virginia. I have learned to make a pretty good imitation of them at home (you can't duplicate that bread, so don't even think about it!).
I start off with frozen bread dough (it's actually a pretty close
substitute to the real thing). Let the dough thaw and double in size
according to the directions on the package. Cut up some stick
pepperoni into 3" chunks. Cut the chunks into wedges (you decide how
big).
Cheese can be rolled up inside the bread along with the pepperoni. If you prefer the pepperoni can be replaced with another meat (of course, then it isn't a pepperoni roll anymore!). They would be very tasty with sausage or ham (especially if your name is DeWitte).
For a real taste treat, slice that baby open and load it up with some peppers and tomatoes.
This evening Ken and I took bethie-noodle out to dinner. She's in town on business and we thought it would be fun to meet. She wanted something she could only get in Oklahoma, but the best we could come up with was chicken fried steak. Sure you can get it pretty much anywhere in the south, but it's part of the official Oklahoma State Meal (yes, we have one). In order to do it up right we took her to Cattlemen's Steakhouse. Yes. We got the lamb fries. Yes. Beth ate some. Yes. She liked them. Turns out she's an adventurous eater just like we are. In the future she'd like to go try out the Ethiopian restaurant.
After we came back to the house I gave Beth a tour of my studio. Then we sat in the living room to visit for a while. After only about 5 minutes Kitty came down the stairs and went right up to Beth and asked to be petted. Kitty doesn't even do this for family! I've never seen her go into the same room with a stranger that quickly let alone allow one to touch her. I guess Beth is good people!
Ken went pig hunting again this weekend and I've been left to my own devices. Normally I would use such a weekend to get absolutely tons of work done, but today I socialized a good part of the day. John came to town to spend the weekend with his grandmother, but was kind enough to take a little time away from her to take Wendi and I out to lunch. He also brought presents for us and the fabric he picked up for me on his big mystery vacation. I already know what I'm going to do with part of the fabric he brought, but I'll save that for another post. The visit was lots of fun, but as always, far too short.
This evening I had dinner with Paxton and Strixaluco. A few months ago Strix and I got to talking about Ethiopian food and she mentioned that she hadn't had any in years. I told her we have a very good restaurant here in OKC and if they were interested I would take them there the next time they were passing through. Today was the day. As I had promised there was way too much food and we all ate until we thought we were going to pop! It was lots of fun to finally meet someone in person I've made friends with on VOX. Meeting people online is not new to me (that's how I met my husband), but this somehow takes blogging to a new level for me. I hope to someday meet more of my VOX friends in person.
I'm on my way out the door for a big weekend of quilting. 40 women at a church camp in Perkins, OK with a fabulous quilt store just 6 blocks away! Lots of food, lots of friends (new and old), and lots and lots of sewing. I'll take pictures and let you know about all the fun after I get home Saturday evening.
I found some Anasazi beans at the grocery store a few weeks ago and thought I'd give them a try. Today I finally got around to cooking them.
I'll let you know tomorrow whether or not they also hold up on the promise of creating less gas!
2. Drink as much eggnog as you can. And quickly. It's rare. You can't find it any other time of year but now. So drink up! Who cares that it has 10,000 calories in every sip? It's not as if you're going to turn into an eggnog-alcoholic or something. It's a treat. Enjoy it. Have one for me. Have two. It's later than you think. It's Christmas!
3. If something comes with gravy, use it. That's the whole point of gravy. Gravy does not stand alone. Pour it on. Make a volcano out of your mashed potatoes. Fill it with gravy. Eat the volcano. Repeat step #3.
4. As for mashed potatoes, always ask if they're made with skim milk or whole milk. If it's skim, pass. Why bother? It's like buying a sports car with an automatic transmission.
5. Do not have a snack before going to a party in an effort to control your eating. The whole point of going to a Christmas party is to eat other people's food for free. Lots of it. Hello?
6. Under no circumstances should you exercise between now and New Year's. You can do that in January when you have nothing else to do. This is the time for long naps, which you'll need after circling the buffet table while carrying a 10-pound plate of food and that vat of eggnog.
7. If you come across something really good at a buffet table, like frosted Christmas cookies in the shape and size of Santa, position yourself near them and don't budge. Have as many as you can before becoming the center of attention. They're like a beautiful pair of shoes. If you leave them behind, you're never going to see them again.
8. Same for pies. Apple. Pumpkin. Mincemeat. Have a slice of each. Or if you don't like mincemeat, have two apples and one pumpkin. Always have three. When else do you g et to have more than one dessert? Labor Day?
9. One final tip: If you don't feel terrible when you leave the party or get up from the table, you haven't been paying attention. Re-read tips; start over, but hurry, January is just around the corner. Remember this motto to live by:
"Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate in one hand, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming "WOO HOO what a ride!"
Have a great holiday season!
What's your favorite kind of homemade cookie? Share the recipe if you have it.
Fresh and warm from the oven.
It's not the turkey -- it's the carbs.
That might be the bottom line for why you'll slip into a short coma after your Thanksgiving feast this year, scientists say.
Before explaining why carbo-loading may be the culprit for the annual snooze, it's necessary to present a brief history of turkey and tryptophan.
Tryptophan is one of nine "essential" amino acids we use, meaning it can't be manufactured by our bodies but must be ingested in our food. It makes up about 1 percent of the protein in turkey -- roughly the same proportion found in other meats and about half the level found in milk.
Because experiments showed that tryptophan could directly induce drowsiness in lab animals, it was blamed for several years for our post-Thanksgiving siestas.
The idea gained even more currency when a famous episode of "Seinfeld" showed Jerry and George feeding turkey and wine to Jerry's girlfriend so she would fall asleep and let them play with her collection of classic toys.
In more recent years, most stories on the topic have claimed that the turkey-sleep connection is "an urban myth," and that turkey would only make you sleepy if you ate it on an empty stomach.
The truth, it turns out, is probably more complicated than that, says John Fernstrom, a psychiatry professor and biochemistry researcher at the University of Pittsburgh.
Tryptophan does get into the brain and produces a neurotransmitter called serotonin, which can create feelings of satisfaction and drowsiness, Dr. Fernstrom said. And serotonin is a precursor for melatonin, the hormone that kicks in after dark and helps put us to sleep for the night.
On the other hand, the protein in turkey and other foods also contains a lot of other amino acids, some of which create feelings of alertness in the brain, so under normal circumstances, "if you're stuffing yourself silly with turkey, which would be a lot of protein, that by itself wouldn't raise how much tryptophan was going into the brain," Dr. Fernstrom said.
And that -- drum roll, please -- is where the Thanksgiving carbohydrates come into play.
When people load up on rolls, stuffing, mashed potatoes and other carb-heavy foods, it will spur a surge of insulin to make use of all that nutrition, and it turns out that insulin pulls almost every amino acid that's in the bloodstream into muscle tissue -- except for tryptophan.
As a result, carbo-loading can leave a disproportionate amount of tryptophan in the bloodstream, and that could produce extra serotonin in the brain, thus inducing drowsiness.
The trouble is, Dr. Fernstrom said, the studies that show a link between heavy carbs and heavy snoring are not utterly convincing, and there could be several other reasons why the Pilgrims and the Indians all shared a nap.
For one thing, there is the psychological ambience of the holiday, said Timothy Maher, the Sawyer professor of pharmaceutical sciences at the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences in Boston.
"It's the national day of rest," Dr. Maher said. "It's not like you're rushing through your lunch so you can go back to work."
Then there are the other factors at work: the comfy recliner, the boring Detroit Lions football game on TV and Uncle Andy explaining his latest business trip in excruciating detail.
Add to that the fact that there is a direct relationship between how full someone is and how satisfied and ready for a nap they are.
That's part of the appeal, for instance, behind "The Volumetrics Eating Plan," a best-selling diet book created by Barbara Rolls, the Helen A. Guthrie chair of nutrition science at Penn State University.
Diets often don't work because people continue to crave food when they can't fill their stomachs, she said. Her diet plan relies on eating a lot of fruits and vegetables with high water content, which fill the stomach but don't load on the calories.
"Whether people want to do that on Thanksgiving or not, I don't know," she said. "The last thing we want to do is interfere with people's pleasure" on the national feast day.
But there are ways of tweaking the traditional Thanksgiving meal to make it more healthful, she said, such as using more veggies in the stuffing and making vegetables and potatoes without as much butter.
Whether any of that would hold off the postprandial nap, though, is open to question.
In fact, a new area of research shows that another brain chemical called orexin may play a key role in the drowsiness cycle, regardless of whether any turkey is on the plate.
Scientists have long known that when people are hungry, they are more alert. In prehistoric times, that was probably a signal for people to get off their duffs and start stalking the latest meal, as opposed to simply taking a short hike to the refrigerator.
Recent studies have shown that animals' brains secrete orexin when they are hungry and their baseline metabolism is low. Conversely, after a meal, when baseline metabolism rises and the animal gets sleepy, the output of orexin drops off.
So whether it's a dropoff in orexin, a surge of tryptophan or a football game nobody cares about, eyelids are almost certain to droop after Thanksgiving, Dr. Fernstrom said.
"All of these signals end up telling the brain, 'I'm going to sleep now.'"
For a full sit-down dinner with several guests, would you rather be the one cooking or do you prefer to just show up and eat?
I can't say that I prefer one over the other. They are both good.
My Groups
-
The Thinking Woman Updated: 8 minutes ago
-
Evolution Updated: 29 minutes ago
-
Love where you live Updated: 3 hours ago
Neighborhood
Explore friends, family, friends & family, or entire neighborhood.
