When SuperFoods Attack

daphne on January 22, 2010

You are driven to eat well.  You have pledged to unearth healthy foods in your quest to do right by yourself and your family.  You will eat more vegetables.

You, my dear, haven’t thought enough about all those involved.

Did you ever stop to think that maybe the chard would rather not be consumed thank you very much?

Or that maybe the broccoli doesn’t particularly want to hang out on the business end of a fork?

You didn’t think, did you?

Well, neither did I.  After all, I thought my focus on eating healthy and providing my family with vitamin-rich foods was an unambiguously positive one.  Little did I know that notching my belt with one antioxidant-wielding super food after another was antagonizing some very powerful enemies.

Lesson learned.

Now I know better.

Veggies are people too.

I guess.

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Before I became so enlightened, I callously tore cabbage from a list of ‘what we should eat.’  Thoughtlessly I sliced through the deep purple flesh, and though my hand began to tingle I continued the massacre, dicing and chopping until I had a bowl full of the beautiful bi-colored vegetable.

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I added carrot slices, and admired the vividly contrasting hues.  I ignored the itching in my throat while I congratulated myself on discovering a super-veggie that the whole family enthusiastically consumed.

Yippee said I, and happily served up the leftovers to myself and my family the following night as well.

I shouldn’t have been so cavalier.

That cabbage kicked my butt, leaving me with a swollen eye worthy of a heavy weight boxing ring, a face full of hives and a nice pink-all-over kind of rash.  I was dizzy.  I was blotchy and swollen and itchy and boy oh boy was I longing for the days when a nice bowl of chocolate ice cream said dinnertime.

‘Take that,’ said the cabbage.   Man was he mean.

‘There, there,’ soothed the chocolate.

Chocolate is so nice.

Chocolate doesn’t make me look all puffy.

Chocolate is my friend.

You’ve Got Issues

daphne on January 15, 2010

By issues, I’m referring, of course, to food.

And by you, I mean of course, me.

Wow, I’m feeling better already just airing out that confession.  Earlier in the week I felt differently.  Earlier in the week I sat smugly way on the other side of a phone call from food issues.

I was talking to my sister, a new mom who is juggling all the complexities that come with feeding a baby.  You know the stream of self-questioning that ensues with all things child-related–

How much is too much how much is too little how do I measure how do I know why is this so hard  I should probably have another cookie or two to help me think straight…

I gave her what advice I could, given that my babies never ate, and then the conversation turned to the challenging task of raising children with normal relationships to food in a world where eating-related issues practically grow on trees.

We talked of modeling healthy relationships with food. We talked about not making a big deal out of food.  We talked about meal times as time to eat, and other times as time for other.  We sounded really smart and rational.

I crossed my self-congratulatory arms across my chest and declared that now that my kids are older I NEVER fall prey to whimpers for nighttime snacking.

Reality always waits until one is not looking to smack one upside her stupid head.

My six year-old was snug in her bed.  Blankets had been tucked just so and band-aids had been applied to every microscopic scrape, imagined or otherwise.  And then she pulled out the big guns…

BUT MOMMY I’M HUNGRY.

I knew my role.  I knew the right thing to say, and I said it:

No honey, you already ate and now it’s bedtime.

But she didn’t stop there.

MOMMY I’M SO HUNGRY THAT IT HURTS DEEP INSIDE MY TUMMY.

And with that I promptly escorted the tough bitch to the door and waved bye-bye to the callous advocate of sending healthy, strong, normal children to bed hungry.  I gave a kick in the pants to lesson teaching and good habits and all such nonsense.

My baby? Hungry?  Get out of my way.  Last I checked feeding my child perched at the very top of my job description.

But maybe she’s not really hungry.  Maybe she is a manipulative little twit who pulls no punches in her pursuit of attention.

Yes, perhaps you have a point, you mean, heartless, cold version of myself.  But know what?  I can’t pop attention into the microwave and serve it up hot as I wipe her tears away.

But I can feed my baby.  And I will feed my babies.

Besides, we’ve had a little chat and now we’re all on the same page.  Eating will be done at the dinner table at dinner time.  And there will be no two ways about it.

(You know, unless she gets really hungry.)

Grandma Was So Much Tougher

daphne on January 11, 2010

For some, the holidays are a time of peace.  A time to reflect on special stuff, family stuff.   A time to recall the little things that made Grandma so sweet.

This year the holidays gave me a wallop by way of a sudden and tremendous recognition that my Grandma, all four feet ten inches of her, was an ass-kicking strong man in disguise.  She was strong, not as in, wow, she overcame so much when she moved to this country with nothing more than the snow in which she’d walk both ways up hill to her destinations.

No, I’m talking strong as in, this is an actual un-retouched picture of my Grandmother, taken long ago in the old days–

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(Anyone know what happens when you call up the spirit of Jack Lalanne twice in four months? I’m guessing it means I can skip the gym today, right?)

Anyway, Grandma was strong.  I base this retrospective assessment on a recent attempt to recreate a recipe from our ancestry for my daughter’s class assignment.

Recipe?  Said I.  Oh no, we can do better — we’ve got the actual cookie press from my little old cookie-making Grandmother.

Note: The 2000 in the name refers to number of humans on the earth at the time this was manufactured.

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My grandma made cookies with this gem, which is basically a caulking gun for the kitchen.  The dough goes in one end and, with the ease that one would birth a thirteen-pound baby, out pops the cookies.

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PUSH!

Breathe.

PUSH!

Breathe.

My children, not yet being of cookie-bearing age, left the toiling to me, though they did step in to add a teaspoon or twelve of sugar to the globs that I managed to produce.

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In the end all I got for my efforts, for those hours of shoulder-twisting wrist-jarring pain, was a lousy batch of sugar cookies.  That’s like going through 3 days of back labor to birth a dart frog.  Cute, yes.  Sweet, sure.  Just not exactly what I had in mind going in.

Things were tough in the old days.

Maybe sugar cookies were all that they knew.

Maybe Grandma didn’t have easy access to chocolate.

But I do.

Chocolate is the best.

And it never makes me work this hard.

It’s Her Birthday…and I’ll Cry If I Want To

daphne on January 4, 2010

Nah, despite my reputation to the contrary, I’m not going to cry.  I may be shaking my head back and forth in disbelief that I am old enough to have a nine year old, but there won’t be any tears.  Not when I am the proud mama of an attitude-copping, eye-rolling, delicious delightful beautiful nine year-old.

Ok, so maybe I will shed a tear or two, but that’s only because I am so overwhelmingly lucky in claiming this motley crew as my own —

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Note, re: the helmets in this shot — we were sledding, okay?  My petition for above offspring to wear helmets plus full-body protective-wear 24/7 continues to be denied.

Turns out I’m not alone in thinking that nine is pretty darn old.  At her birthday dinner Kira pointed out the sad facts, there in black and white on the kids menu:

Kids’ meals are for children, 8 years and under.

Of course I marched right into the kitchen to have a word with the joker responsible for deciding that 9 years on this earth qualifies one to be an adult.  Well, I didn’t actually march in there, but I considered it.   Truth is I was pretty hungry and besides, what better gift to give than the gift of narrowly avoided mortifying embarrassment?

Child or no, a birthday girl is entitled to a day of  activities of her choosing.  And so it was that we set out for the Breckenridge bone-jarring sledding hill. Being nine, Kira marched herself to the top of the hill without pause and launched herself down the mountain at rocket speed before I could let loose with an over-protective blood curdling shriek of “NO WAY ARE YOU GOING OVER THOSE NECK-TWISTING, SPINE-SNAPPING JUMPS!” or maybe just a “HEY IS THAT HELMET TIGHT ENOUGH?”

Once she got the jumping part out of her system, everyone wanted to take a ride with the birthday girl.  Here she is with Good-sport Grandpa–

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And with her very own wild and crazy mom —

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And post-hill posing with her punky sister (helmet removed only for the picture, trust me.)

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Happy Birthday to my Incredible Nine Year Old.  I love you, and I love being your mom.

Tempation v Moderation, a struggle in verse

daphne on December 17, 2009

It gets kind of heavy

This burden I shoulder

I must lighten up . . .

And yet I grow bolder

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Bolder because it makes me so mad

To think that the chicken for dinner we had

Packed a punch of hormones, a dabble of drugs

I’m a tree-lovin’ hippy; I just want more hugs

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More hugs for my children

And food that is healthy

I don’t like thinking of food

As sneaky and stealthy

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Though it is a necessary chore

I find listing prohibitions to be such a bore

Despite the recent blast o’ information

I’m taking myself on a splurge-vacation

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Oh the cakes I will bake

And the cookies I’ll eat

The latkes that shimmer

In oily heat

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I love sugar! I do! I most definitely do!

From the tips of my hair to the soles of my shoe!

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Yes, they say moderation is key

Sadly, that doesn’t quite cut it for me

For if even one crumb of a sweet does remain

It lures me; it taunts me; it calls me by name

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I am weak-kneed before the goddess temptation

She’s simply superior to that wimp moderation

And yet I suppose I should balance the two

Come 2010, I promise, that’s just what I’ll do

Hungry? Pass Me My Soapbox

daphne on November 30, 2009

Back in the old days nobody was allergic to food, and I was the only kid in class who had to sit out PE because of a weird breathing problem.  Now we have peanut-free computer rooms and asthma is as prevalent in schools as number 2 pencils.  Kids sure have changed.

Well, something has changed, but maybe it’s not the kids.  Maybe it’s what we’re putting into kids today that is so remarkably different.

I thought I was aware.  I thought I was doing a pretty good job with this whole food thing.  But this weekend I saw the movie Food Inc, and once again my eyes have been forcibly opened.  If you think the truth was inconvenient, you’re not going to be happy when you take a look at what’s going on with food these days.  This is not about your sweet tooth.  This has nothing to do with cutting out the fat.  The very food we eat, the food we feed to our children, has become little more than chemically and politically engineered calories.

Our bodies are not happy about that change.  Our bodies are staging a revolt.  So should we.

I know. It’s not fun, and I’m sorry.  But we need to pay closer attention to the story of our food.  The story, in short, goes something like this–

In 1994 we started engineering neurotoxins into our food supply.  The rise and acceptance of genetically modified crops and uber-processed food-like items corresponds quite neatly with the bizarre health trends that we’re noticing in our children and their friends.

As of the year 2000, 1 in 3 of our children will develop asthma, ADHD, serious food allergies, or autism.  Our cancer rates are considerably higher than all other developed countries. A person’s risk increases by 4x just by moving to the United States.

That is crazy. And terrifying.  And totally unacceptable.

It’s one thing to go overboard every now and then.  We all do it, eat junk and then negotiate with ourselves for a longer jog, a salad for dinner.  And that balancing act used to be enough.  But these new-fangled calories are different. The damage they do cannot be worked out in the gym.  Our children are not lazy; their bodies simply have no idea what to do with the junk that we shovel into them in the name of convenience.

The more refined or processed a food item is, the further away from it’s natural state a snack gets, the less our bodies are able to deal with it without getting sick. Really, really sick.

We don’t even know what we’re eating anymore, but I know this: we need to go back to eating food.  Real food with real ingredients.

It may seem inconvenient; then again, so do seatbelts and helmets.

Rules to Eat By:

  • Eat real food; that is, food that our grandparents would instantly recognize.
  • Eat food as close to it’s natural state as possible.
  • Read labels. If you can’t pronounce it or define it, don’t eat it.
  • If you’re eating meat, know where it comes from.   Cows haven’t evolved to eat corn, organic or otherwise.  It makes them sick.  Healthy cows eat grass. Healthy people eat healthy cows.
  • An average fast food burger contains DNA from hundreds or even thousands of different animals.  Even if those animals aren’t sick, it is gross, and dangerous.

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Wow, that’s sure a lot of proselytizing. So where have I gotten all my information?  Here–

Books I think are terrific:

Movies that tell the story (both are available from Netflix.)

  • King Corn – 2 guys plant 1 acre and follow it through the system and into our food;
  • Food Inc — great summary of the issues, including the politics of the food system;

Mwha Ha Ha, Mwha Ha Ha (wring hands here)

daphne on November 18, 2009

That’s the sound of my mad scientists, seen here hatching their plans to overtake the world.

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Maybe they’re not plotting intergalactic mayhem. At this moment they claim to be separating out strands of DNA from corn meal at the new exhibit at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.

Even if they were plotting world domination, there’s something about my babies all geared up in scientist garb that’s just so darn sweet.  Even intergalactic mayhem would be palatable if it came wrapped in this package.  Am I right?

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You got me.  I just like saying intergalactic mayhem.  It’s fun.  Try it.

Know what I’m up to this afternoon?

Not much.

Just some intergalactic mayhem, that’s all.

If ever there were two intergalactic mayhem-wringing punks, it would be mine.  They are so in-sync that even their brain waves bob up and down in the same rhythm.  I know, because they hooked themselves up and I watched their brains a’waving.

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This is a game at Exhibition Health.  The player who can make her mind relax the most moves the ball across the board and into her opponent’s goal.   Not only did the girls’ battle of calmness last almost 5 minutes, but their wavelengths were completely synchronized until the final second, when, with a burst of mind control, Acadia relaxed past her sister for the win.

Dave and I also engaged our brainwaves in some head-to-head combat. Our game lasted a nano-second.   Maybe that’s because he had no problem closing his eyes and losing sight of his children in a crowded museum, while I remained ever vigilant.  Maybe I worry too much.  Either way, I lost the game; I retained sight of my children.  Everyone’s a winner.

Now if you’re wondering what in this crazy blue planet does intergalactic mayhem have to do with my whole eating green theme, be patient young grasshopper; I was just getting to that.

Despite the fact that Dave still has his eyes closed from his triumph in the battle of the brainwaves, do not be fooled.  He may look sleepy, but that’s just because science is such hard work.

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And if you don’t think intergalactic mayhem-making builds a mega-appetite, than you’ve got a thing or two to learn about science my friend.

Somebody’s got to feed the starving scientists.

That’s where I come in.

Mayhem-makers or not, they’re my babies.  And when they return from a long day of wreaking havoc in our solar system there will be a local, sustainably-raised, organic meal waiting for them.

I’ll Have Thanksgiving When I Want to Have Thanksgiving

daphne on November 12, 2009

The thing about holidays is that there are billions of things that can make one cranky.  Jacked-up airline prices and crowded airports; insanity at the market and children who insist on dallying with strep throat.  Not to mention the pressure, the crowds, and all those random crazy hungry people who insist they are related to you.

You can’t do much about the crazies other than learn to love ’em.  But the rest of it can be avoided if you do what I do: schedule Thanksgiving for whenever the heck it works for you.  Trust me, if you roast it, they will come.  For us, Thanksgiving was this past weekend.

I cooked this sumptuous meal–

Pictured: smattering of little people who would consume the turkey.

Not pictured: the actual turkey.

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Thing is,  I can’t figure out how those fancy-shmancy bloggies do it. I don’t know how they manage to bring home the bacon, fry it up with grease splattering everywhere and photograph it at the same time.  I get the camera into the kitchen, but when I’m up to my elbows in turkey butt with onion-induced tears streaming down my face I always forget to reach for it.

It’s probably a good thing.  Should I happen to remember one day I have no doubt that said camera would land itself right up in there with the onions and the apples and that would be no good. No good at all.

Posterity will have to wait.

Trust me when I tell you that the turkey was golden and gorgeous.  I started out with a deep muscle rub-down, a nice buttery-sage-cider massage which relaxed him enough to climb into that oven and do his job.

Mmmm, check out this golden roasted turkey–

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If by golden roasted turkey I mean a haggard bunch of related turkeys posed on the front stairs.  Which I do.

This year for faux-Thanksgiving I took an atypical laissez-faire approach towards dessert.  Not eating it, of course, but making it.  I handed that duty off to my sister, who made a yummy pumpkin cheesecake, and my brother, who under pressure and duress from the wise woman-folk in his life agreed to make the cool, free-form apple pie we found in our new Pioneer Woman cookbook.

Baby brother delivered. Check out his results.  Err, I mean, Look! It’s Grandma and Grandpa with some of the kiddies at the park.

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Hang on a second.  With someone else bellying up to the old oven, I was freed up to snap some real live food pictures–

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Viewing this lovely picture one might think that the most enjoyable part about forcing a brother to bake a pie would be eating it.  But that wasn’t so.

The best part of this pie was the post-game debriefing provided by his supportive family. We lovingly went through every step of his process to point out where he went wrong and what he could have done better.  It was very kind of us, and although he bravely declined my offer of a pad and pencil for note taking,  I know my brother was thankful for the feedback.

At least on the inside.  And because my heart is just that big, I will give him another chance to redeem himself.  Aren’t big sisters the best?

And now, with our holiday feasting behind us, let me be the first to wish you a Happy Thanksgiving.  I know, I know it’s early. But that’s the way I roll. Oftentimes I find myself ahead of the curve.

Setting the pace.

Dancing on the cutting edge.

But it’s all to your advantage dear reader.  I may completely rearrange the calendar to meet my needs, but that does not mean I’m selfish.  Just for you, you poor souls for whom the pressures of Thanksgiving still loom large on the horizon, I offer you this–an already planned, tried and true Thanksgiving menu–

My Thanksgiving Menu: The Recipes

Bon Appetit!

And There I’d Keep Him Very Well

daphne on November 4, 2009

The “there” of which I speak is this inconceivably large pumpkin shell.  Care to guess whom I would like to stuff inside?

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You might be thinking Dave, particularly if you have read the lyrical ode to my over- ambitious pumpkin-seed loving husband.  Perhaps putting him in a pumpkin shell is the consummate solution to a spouse mad out of his gourd.   I do like the way you think,  but it was actually this little guy I had in mind–

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This pint-sized delicious nephew of mine is coming to visit, and I know if given the chance I could keep him very well inside a giant pumpkin shell. But his mama is relatively new at all this baby stuff;  I bet when they arrive later this week she’ll insist on napping him somewhere clean and non-vegetative, like a pack+play.  New parents can be so unimaginative.

No sweat.  I already found a new occupant for the remains of the pumpkin shell abode.  You remember this guy?  We’ve renamed him ‘El Gordito’ after his recent pumpkin binge.

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He is thrilled with his edible bed.  Especially after I generously moved it out of the snow.  He was none too happy with the blizzard last week that left his stomping grounds looking like this —

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Before I moved his meal, El Gordito performed an interpretative cold paw dance on the snow that expressed his deepest desire (warm feet.) I should have caught it on film, but I have my reputation to consider. I don’t want people thinking that I’m spending too much time alone.  Alone, with squirrels, I mean.

Some would have me focus on the more human yet also cute inhabitants of this household.

Fine. For the record, cute humans that also reside here–

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Pictured: Sister Hermione, Sister Black Cat, and Mama Cowgirl.  Not pictured: Papa, sigh, Cowboy.  You’ll have to take my word for it.  Crazy-pumpkin-seed boy makes a mighty fine cowboy.  Yes-sir-ree-bob, he does.

Any-hoo, back to El Gordito.  I think I heard that you can actually bake things right inside a pumpkin shell.  Boy oh boy this year’s Thanksgiving dinner is practically preparing itself.

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Mmmm, Pumpkin roasted squirrel. Gotcha, Gordito! (That’s where I slam the whole squirrel-gourd combo into a big casserole and pop ‘er into the old oven.)

No, not really.  Here’s what I did do with the giant pumpkin shell.  In my quest for the title of  Auntie-of-the-Year, I pureed that 287 pound beauty.  I roasted. I diced.  I pureed and I pureed and I pureed.

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So here’s the deal baby Miles:  You can sleep wherever your newbie parents want you to sleep.  Just be sure to be hungry.  Be very very hungry.

Because, my dear boy, you have 875 pounds of pumpkin to eat.

Quoth the Husband, Nevermore

daphne on October 29, 2009

Thank you, Edgar Allen Poe, for graciously lending me the format and rhyme of your beloved The Raven to summarize the following scene of suburban pumpkin mayhem.

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Once upon a weeknight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary,

Over a large and snowy cluster of shriveled gourds;

I determined I’d be napping, when from the kitchen I heard tapping

‘Twas my husband, strangely, tap-tap-tapping.

With a knife, he was apparently not down with napping.

He had the pumpkins on the floor.

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Ah, distinctly I remember, saying No, let’s not dismember,

The pumpkins though true, the flesh puckers in with mush.

Gently I urged the task forgotten, put off a day; I was down-trodden

And there was laundry to be gotten, yet the knife began to slash.

The madman muttered softly, and with his knife began to slash

And I? I intercepted flesh aimed for the trash.

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Inevitably the task grew longer, his resolve did not grow stronger;

`Wife,’ said he, `Help, for your assistance I implore;

The fact is I was trying, a plan to expedite the drying,

Perhaps they need a’fryin’?  And he grinned, amongst the seeds there on the floor.

I took in the grisly score, gourd flesh stuck to ceiling and to floor.

My eyes flashed darkness, nothing more.

Though I said that I was weary, the seeds were out and oh so smeary

Pumpkin guts piled high into the night

I shook my head, recipe reciting, rocking slightly to keep from fighting

Like an angel softly igniting, I opened up the oven door.

‘In they go,’ said I, pointing tired spouse towards oven door.

Quoth my husband, Nevermore

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