Brand Me Redux

So, color me proud — I successfully improvised a meal. “Successful” in this case means that it got a thumbs-up from my daughter. She’s not really a picky eater, but she will let you know when she doesn’t like something.

One of things I’d spontaneously decided to make with all our Thanksgiving leftovers was pot-pies. I love pot-pies and the last time I had one in a restaurant, my daughter demonstrated an interest in them. Tasting a bit of mine, she pronounced it Very Good and went back to eating her meal.

It was a rainy, dreary day yesterday, so that seemed as good a time as any to make pot-pies. In my mind, a pot-pie is pretty simple: diced veggies and meat, Bechamel-type of sauce, double-crust configuration.

As my desire to lose weight and get back in shape intensifies (as it always does at this time of year), I find myself more and more compelled to cook even more healthfully than I already do. So, I look for recipes that, among other things, don’t contain too much butter, salt, milk, or sugar. EatingWell.com is perhaps the best site I’ve found for this, so this is where I began my search for a healthy pot-pie recipe.

EatingWell.com did not disappoint. Trouble was, I didn’t have most of the ingredients called for, even though I had just gone grocery shopping. (Such is the frustration of cooking on the fly.) Looking at the recipe, however, I noticed the EatingWell version wasn’t too far off from what I already had on hand — I’d just need to get a little creative with the sauce.

Bechamel sauce is pretty calorie-dense with over 80% of those calories from fat. No surprise there since Bechamel sauce is made with milk, butter, and flour. EatingWell’s version used low-fat sour cream which I didn’t have. However, I did have a can of cannellini beans (aka white kidney beans). I also had:

• Leftover turkey, chopped up in bite-sized pieces, about 3 cups
• Leftover green bean casserole, about 1.5 cups — made with sauteed onions because french-fried onions are gross
• Half a bag of frozen mixed veggies (about 1.5 cups)
• 2 cups of chicken broth prepared at half-strength with Better Than Bouillon Chicken Base
• A box of frozen puff pastry sheets

After draining and washing the beans under cold running water, I pureed them in my food processor until smooth and transferred to a bowl. I then added the leftover green bean casserole and stirred in some ready-made Mediterranean spice mix to give it some flavor. I heated up a large pan and threw in the frozen veggies and turkey. Once they were warm, I stirred in the bean mixture and added a splash of the chicken broth to loosen things up and make it easier to stir. As the entire mixture warmed up I added more broth until the “sauce” was the consistency I wanted — thick enough to stay on a fork and thin enough to pour easily from a large spoon. If I had to guess, I think I used a little over a cup of the broth.

Meanwhile, I thawed out the puff pastry sheets and used an 8-oz ramekin to cut top and bottom-sized circles which I baked. These would be my “biscuits” forming the top and bottom layers of my pot-pies. These didn’t take too long — I cut these out and baked them as the veggies and turkey were warming up in the pan.

Assembly was simple: one pastry round in the bottom, spoon in hot pie mixture, top with another pastry round. Et voila — dinner is ready. Including time to thaw the puff pastry, dinner took me under an hour to make. Without the crust, I imagine it would take me around 20 minutes tops.

So, how does this stack up, nutritionally? Well, knowing that making per-serving food calculations are dodgy at best, I’ve nonetheless done a little estimating using the calorie counter at About.com. I used their recipe analysis feature to work up a nutrition profile for my turkey pot pie and compared it to a similar serving of a comparable frozen pot pie. Here are the numbers:

Comparing against other brands like Swanson’s and Banquet, my pot pie did even better. The About.com counter also gives foods a “nutrition grade” on a A-F scale. Although no grade was available for the Marie Callendar pot pie, a similar serving of Swanson’s pot pie gets a D+, which is about par for the pot pies that were graded. My pot pie gets a B+.

Of course, the EatingWell.com recipe blows mine out of the water, nutritionally. Assuming a similar serving size (about 1 cup), here are the numbers:

As with my recipe, the About.com calorie counter grades the EatingWell recipe at a B+, but with fewer calories, half the total fat, and more protein, the EatingWell.com recipe is healthier overall. So, in the future, if I have the urge to make pot pie again, I’ll probably opt for EatingWell’s recipe. Still, in a pinch, my on-the-fly recipe is a competent runner-up and beats the pants off store-bought.

Yay me!

Italy: The last word in luxury paper-making (Telegraph.co.uk)

A brilliant little story about the Italian town of Amalfi and its last truly traditional paper-maker. Continue Reading »

Chow.com: Obsessives

This is a densely-packed series of video vignettes featuring people who love making foods at least as much as eating them. Since I’m a tea-lover, myself, my all-time favorite in the bunch has to be this one with tea connoisseur James Norwood Pratt. But coming up fast are Beau the Sake Samurai, June the Marmalade Maven, and Anthony the Pizza Purist.

Enjoy.

One of the things that I think I’ve missed for many years is the energy I used to feel when in the presence of people who had a tangible passion for something. Something that drove them mad trying to understand, make, and master. And through the madness, bound them such that they couldn’t imagine their lives without it and couldn’t imagine not sharing it with the world.

You know how it is when you’re little and you immerse yourself in one thing for hours, whether it’s building skyscrapers with Legos, drawing richly detailed landscapes and coloring them in, or writing stories on an antique typewriter. And then you grow up and you can no longer afford to do one thing for hours. In order to be responsible and, strangely enough, productive, you have to do a lot of things. Often simultaneously.

For a long time, I bought into that. If I wanted to be successful or otherwise “live up to my potential”, I had to spin as many plates as I could and keep them spinning for as long as I could. If someone or something knocked them down into a shattered mess, I had to get new plates and start all over again. Add to that the artificial requirement of performing circus tricks while keeping my plates aloft and spinning, and you’ve got a pretty accurate picture of what working in a corporate environment is like.

Well, I don’t buy into that any longer. I’ve multitasked so hard for so long I’ve made myself old well before my years. I’ve only been about 9 years in my profession, but I don’t think I’ll be much longer for it. However much I might need it for the money, no one will have me again once my current gig is done. So, it’s time to go back to first principles, to revisit the seeds of madness from my younger days and take the roads of desire instead of requirement.

I know it can be done. The more I think about it, the more I see it. And when I find proof I can share, I’ll post it here.

I could rant and rave about all the reasons why Sarah Palin should not only NOT win the American Vice Presidency but should also have her US citizenship revoked and be re-assigned to a real theocracy like in Saudi Arabia. I mean, judging by everything I’ve read so far:

• Sarah Palin is a religious whackjob. As such, she is as superstitious and intellectually backward as any medieval peasant and as dangerous, both at home and abroad, as any terrorist.
• Sarah Palin hates women who want to rise above the status of “brood mare” by taking some measure of control over their reproductive cycles.
• Sarah Palin hates single people (especially single mothers), same-sex couples, and anyone else in a committed but unmarried relationship.
• Sarah Palin hates children who don’t come from or remain in so-called traditional family structures.
• Sarah Palin wants to force girls to carry and birth children given to them against their will, whether by rapists or incestuous family members.
• Sarah Palin hates sex and anyone who is curious about it, enjoys it, or wants to share the facts surrounding it.
• Sarah Palin is a pathological liar who can’t directly answer simple, legitimate questions about her abilities, her past actions, and her understanding of world issues.
• Sarah Palin is, simply, stupid. She thinks creationism is a peer to evolution in the realm of scientific theories. Indeed, she thinks the Earth is around 6,000 years old. She thinks living across the pond from Russia is a great quality to have in a world leader. She thinks the Founding Fathers wrote the Pledge of Allegiance. Actually, I should stop using “she thinks” because her religiosity actively prevents her from doing anything other than believing.

In short, Sarah Palin supports policies that benefit only the ever-shrinking percentage of Americans who look and behave just like she does (a little less than 50% and dropping, according to Alternatives to Marriage Project). Anyone who doesn’t fit her narrow mold is duty-bound, as a citizen of the US, to pay for those policies in the form of higher taxes, lack of social and financial stability, and lack of economic and intellectual opportunity. In other words, Sarah Palin would institutionally discriminate against the half of Americans who dare to live their lives according to their own reasonable set of values (the way the Founding Fathers envisioned), indenturing them to the half of Americans who toe her questionable moral line (the way the Taliban and Al-Quaeda might envision).

But what’s the point in wasting my precious energy ranting when so many others are doing it, often far better than I ever could:

Palin’s Movement Urges ‘Godly’ to ‘Plunder’ Wealth of ‘Godless’ (talk2action.com)

Palin: ‘I Don’t Know’ If Abortion Clinic Bombers are Terrorists (US News & World Report) This article makes me think a little harder whether Team McCain is intentionally losing in the short term to set the stage for Palin in the longer term. - Ed.

It ain’t elitist to be anti-Palin (NationalPost.com)

Sarah Palin’s War on Science (Christopher Hitchens, Slate.com)

What Sarah Palin is Saying (Anil Dash — an analysis of the careful double-speak Palin uses to rally her supporters)

The Twelve Lies of Sarah Palin (Andrew Sullivan, theAtlantic.com)

When Atheists Attack (Sam Harris via RichardDawkins.net)

Sarah Palin is an idiot (Michael Tomasky, The Guardian)

Please Consider the Following… (Anna Banana, blogger-at-large)

Palin on Thin Ice (PostPartisan, WashingtonPost.com)

McCain thinks Palin is an idiot (The Young Turks)

A Heartbeat Away, or Why Palin’s Churches Matter (Bruce Wilson, Huffington Post)

Sarah Palin and children conceived out of wedlock (AmericaBlog.com — not a rant, per se, but definitely a serious questioning of Palin’s “walking the talk” on traditional families)

Whine Not: The working mother’s case against Sarah Palin (New Republic)

Why Sarah Palin is good for feminism (”Veronica,” WorkItMom.com)

Women Against Sarah Palin

Sarah Palin, would-be banner of books (BoingBoing)

Palin’s Intellectual Bipolar Disorder (Mises Institute)

There’s a lot more out there and I’ll update this page as I can.

…every time you see someone 10-20 years younger than you, your first thought is along the lines of “Would it kill you to drag a comb through that rat’s nest you call hair once in a while?” or “Since when did it ever become acceptable to wear pajamas and flip-flops as outdoor wear?” or “Jesus Christ, spare us all the ambulatory pillow fights and wear a proper-fitting bra already!!”

I wish I could it put it down to jealousy. I mean, I have the motive for it: When I was in my 20s I was way thinner and just more physically attractive than I am now, as I approach my 40s. And I wish I was back to being that thin again, especially since I feel sexier now than I ever did then. But alas, I can’t muster the energy or lack of self-esteem required to be properly jealous.

So, I can only put it down to age — as in, the age of the notion that looking like literal trash is cool. Sorry, but the porn-star bedhead, the peekaboo thong, and the way-too-tight cheap knit tops are old. “Old” as in “so done that it’s crusted over and chews like a brick.” “Old” as in “80-year-old Bette Davis showing off her baggy knees in Patrick Kelly mini-dresses.” “Old” as in “I smell like giving up.”

Where are my smelling salts, I feel the vapors coming on…

Times Online: Paper chase

When I wax nostalgic about the personal significance of good stationery, people tend to look at me like I’ve either lost my mind or they’re affirming to themselves that I really am an 80-year-old in a 30-something body. Fortunately, India Knight of the Times knows exactly what I exactly what I’m talking about, right down to the smell.

You wouldn’t normally think that paper has a smell, especially after it’s been through the wringer known as the international mails. But it does. When I was in high school and kept pen-pal correspondence, one of the best things about getting letters from far away was the olfactory melange of letter paper and envelope glue. It was different depending on the originating country. Letters from my Japanese pen-pals usually smelled very clean, as if they’d been handled only by white gloves. Letters from my English pen-pal always smelled a bit musty, as if they’d just been discovered at the bottom of an antique trunk in someone’s attic. Letters from my French pen-pals smelled slightly metallic, like city streets or the inside of a metro station.

Of course, the truly best thing about snail mail correspondence doesn’t have much to do with the paper or the accessories at all. It has to do with what the letter has collected on its way to its destination. Or what the letter writer included, on purpose or by accident. In other words, the detritus. For example, my English pen-pal would sometimes tape his envelopes to keep his voluminous letters from bursting out. By the time it reached me, the tape would darken such that the letter itself would appear aged, as if it had emerged from some rift in the space-time continuum. Other times, I’d find dirt collected in the corners of the envelope. Once I found blades of grass. Finding these little surprises always made me wonder what he was doing when he was writing. His handwriting, barely legible at times, gave me the impression that he was at once a constant and frantic writer. I often wondered if he did most of his writing outside, perhaps in a park or on some university lawn.

There’s not much physical detritus with email, but there is plenty of the grammatical and orthographic kind. The kind that gets in my way as a reader and ends up making the experience of letter reading about as pleasurable as filing paper. I tend to agree with Knight that stationery is sensual — it lets you see a bit more of a person outside of their words. Email just doesn’t have the same unspoken language that letters do.

Sometimes, when I read articles like this and I realize how much I miss sending and receiving paper letters, I remember that adults are no longer in the business of writing letters. After a certain age (or after having kids), the mind shifts from the long view of future-thinking to a much shortened view. The world shrinks and we think, as adults, that there’s nothing anyone in the world can say to us that would matter as much as our kids or our work. Or we look askance at adults who exchange correspondence for the fun of it, as if to imply there’s something dreadfully, dangerously wrong with them because they appear to have nothing better to do. As if writing letters is the province of the spinster or lonesome bachelor, scratching balefully away in a clutter-filled garrett surrounded by unruly pets.

*sigh*

I’m aware that these might be my own fevered perceptions and that there might be people out there who love exchanging physical correspondence for its own sake, without judgement. As a way out of the electronic jungle of email, IMs, and social networking. As a way back to the sensual pleasures linking mind, body, and soul. As a way to express oneself in private company as opposed to the all-or-nothing proposition of journaling or blogging. I don’t know if they’ve all died or are hiding in plain sight, but I hope they are out there somewhere. And writing.

So, while I was compiling my list of way-cool stationery suppliers, I noticed a link to one of my favorite notebooks ever had been redirected by the maker. Looking through the company’s site, the notebook was nowhere to be found, so I emailed the company and asked what’s up. They replied saying, essentially, the notebook is out of print and they have no plans to produce it again. Ever.

Let me explain why this is a touch disturbing to me.

This was no ordinary notebook. Actually, it was a composition book, but it was a very special composition book. You see, it had a deep apple-red cover that was made all the deeper by the black binding tape. The cover was fairly heavy-duty cardstock that could stand up to repeated backpack abuse. And the pages…oh, the pages…. The pages were subdivided, Cornell style (example). Soft grey dividing lines on smooth white paper. Writing in the book made me feel like an idea-conqueror. My trusty Pilot G2 pen glided effortlessly across the paper and I felt honor-bound to take care to write as neatly as possible. It was such a lovely composition book, meant to be well-used in every way, and I would have hated to ruin it with my typical chicken scratch.

Of course, it’s not just the notebook itself that causes me to obsess as I do. It’s also the memories associated with it. I bought it on a winter trip to Washington, in the company of my favorite people, at a stationery store that I would kill to live in. I wish I had bought their entire stock.

Needless to say, I was crestfallen to know my darling notebook was effectively out of print. I’ve never seen a similar notebook since I bought the one I have and I’m fairly sure I would be searching Google until the end of days trying to locate one by a different maker.

So, I can’t help but wonder what it would take to make my own. Is it something as simple as printing a crap-load of pages, making a cover with cardstock and scrapbooking paper, and stitching the lot together? Or perhaps it might be something a print-on-demand house might be able to do? Hmmm… sounds like a research project.

Yeah, I admit it… I have a thing for stationery. A very big thing, actually. Finely milled papers, perfectly weighted pens, archival quality inks — all of these things spur my imagination into wondering about the possibilities lurking behind a letter or within the pages of a handcrafted journal.

I loved, and still love, stationery stores because they are wonderfully browser-friendly. I mean, you walk in and no one’s there to hassle you about buying something quickly. In the stationery stores of my memory, you can take your time, fondle the merchandise to your heart’s content, and dream of all the adventures you’d have to justify the spend on that buttery handmade journal.

Of course, stationery stores are a lot like bookstores — the good ones are pretty much gone and all that’s left for the most part is the sterile chains. Back in the day, Hallmark stores had a great selection of everyday papers and pens of decent quality, but there’s not as much money in papers for the common folk as there is in cheesy collectible Christmas ornaments and general clutterbuggery. Continue Reading »

The first post is always the hardest.

This domain has lain dormant for so long I’m almost at a loss as to how to begin again. Thing is, though, the blogging muse has finally tapped me on the shoulder once again. Not to expel whatever disease permeates my soul (this time), but to simply be my online calling card.

Continue Reading »