this post brought to you by fur

Hi all,

I realize this is not food related, but I couldn't resist. The Humane Society is putting on a contest wherein people vote for your dog, cat, parakeet, horse, turtle, ferret, whatever and it raises money at the same time. 

Below is my furry son.  Vote for him.  The picture below shows him covered in mud - his favorite state of being...outside of snuggling with me on the couch.

"Broderick Monroe Craft"

A new crispy, yet healthy, treat?

I don't know about you, but kale has always been somewhat intimidating.  Not that I thought it would be hard to prepare, but the one(?) time I've tried it, it lived up to its bitter (literally) reputation. 

Enter "The Next Food Network Star." 

Reality TV has its up and downs, but I'm a sucker for a food-related reality show. ::gasp::  I love Iron Chef, Top Chef, ...any of the Chefs.  The Next Food Network Star is a competition to become the next personality on the Food Network a la Paula Deen, Bobby Flay, etc.  Contestants are asked (and constantly reminded because they seem to forget) to demonstrate their "culinary point of view" and to develop their story. I was hooked from episode one...and now, 6 seasons later, I realize much of the finalists are like those of American Idol - oddly, in some seasons, the runners-up were actually better than the winner. 

Season One's winners were a couple guys whose point of view was that they were preparing for dinner parties...or something like that.  Their show, Party Line with the Hearty Boys, didn't last more than one season.  I found them terribly insipid.  Season Two's winner fared differently.  The winner, Guy Fieri, has become the ubiquitous, bleach blond, spikey-headed, high octane host of multiple shows.  It might be that I would like some of his recipes, but his overuse of terms like "Flavortown" annoy me to no end. He now even hosts the ridiculously stupid "Minute to Win It" game show outside of the confines of Food Network.

Season Three was forgettable.  There was some sort of controversy when it was revealed that one of the finalists had lied about his background.  (Seriously, people, are we still doing that? Do people ever get away with it??)  The eventual winner was reinstated into the finale in his place, and she won.  I remember her "culinary point of view" but not her.  Apparently she found herself to be forgettable as well, because she chose not to renew the show for another season.

Season Four I remember better.  Of the final 5 contestants, four of them have their own shows. This is where the American Idol parallel is at its best, in my opinion.  The winner, Aaron McCargo Jr. just didn't suit me.  And his show, Big Daddy's House, seems clunky.  That said, it's in its third season, so who am I to judge?  His runner-up, Adam Gertler, had one show that didn't last, but now has a show called "Kid in a Candy Show" where he investigates all things sweet.  While he was frenetic and somewhat tiring to watch given his high energy, I think he makes a better TV host than Aaron.  The other two contestants who have shows work on the Cooking Channel (a sister station to Food Network).  I guess when you create a whole other channel, you need to fill up the hours.

Season Five is where my kale comes in.  This was a pretty good season.  While I found the runner-up to be insufferable, some of the other contestants had great appeal, in my opinion.  The winner, Melissa d'Arabian, has an interesting background.  She met her husband in France, has an MBA, and lived in TX.  For me, the draw to her was clear. Her show, Ten Dollar Dinners, shows how you can cook multiple courses for a family for under $10.  And, amazingly, she can do it.  I watch her show only if I stumble upon it, and the other day she was making croque madams.  As someone who is a sucker for essentially an open-faced grilled cheese with cream sauce and fried egg, I watched further.  A side dish she was making, was kale chips. 

I've heard about kale chips and passed them up at every opportunity.  But this seemed like an easy thing to try, and if it turned out horribly, ehh...not much was lost.  Basically, the recipe calls for three ingredients: kale, olive oil, and sea salt.  Guess what?  DELICIOUS.  And really as easy as it sounds.  Set your oven at 275 and start ripping the leaf off the stalk.  Easy - pinch the stalk at the base and run your hand up to the top of the leaf.  Some of the stalk will rip off in your hand, but not to worry.  Rip the leaf up into pieces about an inch in size.  I ripped and then rinsed (organic kale - no need to do anything other than rinse).  Then, make sure the kale pieces are dry. 

Once they're dry, move the kale pieces to a baking sheet (it took two) and put a total of two tablespoons of olive oil over the dried pieces (I put a tablespoon on each baking sheet).  Roll them around and make sure every leaf gets a little oil on it.  Sprinkle with sea salt.  Not too much, though, because you can always add more after they come out of the oven.  Into the oven they go - 10 minutes then move them around and flip them as best you can.  Put them back in for another 10 minutes, or thereabouts, until they're crispy.  I put a little more sea salt after they came out.  Delish. 

Oh, and Season Six of The Next Food Network Star was pretty good.  Aarti Sequeira, the winner, has a show called "Aarti Party" where she makes sometimes overwhelming Indian food very accessible to the average American.  I haven't tried any of her recipes yet, but they always look tasty. 

So, my only question is...do you lose any of the nutritional value by baking the kale?  If you know, please post!

The Minimalist goes the way of the Dodo

As you have most likely heard, Mark Bittman has decided to retire his weekly column in the NY Times, The Minimalist.  Once I picked myself up off the floor and wiped away the tears, I started thinking about a fitting tribute to the man who takes NY dry wit and mixes it with his love of food in a way I could only dream to achieve. 

I may have found it today. 

I'm thinking, a la Julie and Julia, that I might try to create all of the dishes on his 25 favorites list found here. I'm using non-committal language because I've just started a new job and vowing to do something potentially this involved seems a bit daunting.  But it's not like I'm trying to make it through his entire book of "500 Revolutionary Recipes for Better Living," so maybe it is do-able. 

Stay tuned.

Claims claims everywhere and not a bite to eat

Following up on my previous post, I just happened to read this article on Salon.com by Ellen Tarlin.  A quote is below.  It's not like this is a major surprise, but I will say I did think Cheerios were a healthier option.  Oy.

Manufacturers also label foods in tricky ways. They make portion sizes unrealistically small so calorie and nutrient counts appear sufficiently low. A pint of ice cream is supposed to contain four servings of half a cup each. I don't remember the last time I ate just a half-cup of ice cream—probably because there never was one. Food companies also manipulate our perceptions by printing health claims prominently on their packages. When foods are criticized as unhealthy, instead of pulling products, the market alters them, creating "functional foods," which tie an ingredient in the food to the prevention of a certain disease. In some cases, such health claims are irrelevant, because they tout a characteristic a food already naturally possesses (it's meaningless, for example, to say an oil is low-carb, when, in fact, all oils are fats and contain no carbohydrates), or are so qualified as to render them pretty much meaningless, like this one from a box of Cheerios: "Three grams of soluble fiber daily from whole grain oat foods, like Cheerios cereal, in a diet low in saturated fat and cholesterol, may reduce the risk of heart disease. Cheerios cereal provides 1 gram per serving." So if you are already eating a low-fat, low cholesterol diet, eating Cheerios will provide you 1 gram of a substance that might reduce the risk of heart disease. In her book What To Eat, Marion Nestle reveals "The real reason for health claims ... health claims sell food products." Forbes reports that these foods "masquerading as drugs are a booming $31 billion business in the U.S. alone." Food labels also misdirect. Front and center on a General Mills Cocoa Puffs Cereal box are the words "Whole Grain: Guaranteed," but the ingredients list reveals the whole grain to be "whole grain corn" (corn is one of the most overused foods in our country). The next ingredient is sugar, followed by corn meal and corn syrup, which are two other corn products and one other form of sugar.* (The two main sweeteners are most likely divided this way so the "whole grain" can be listed first since ingredients are listed by weight.) One three-quarter-cup serving of the cereal still contains 10 grams of sugar* and encourages people to eat chocolate (or at least chocolate-flavored foods) for breakfast. Nonetheless, the health claim leads consumers to believe the cereal has health benefits, thus making them feel better about buying it and serving it to their kids or eating it themselves.

A kind of love story...

I am in love yet again.  (Yes, I still love Mark Bittman, but amazingly, this is not about him.)

In recent months, I have experienced a training program called the Corporate Athlete.  It's not training in terms of sports (though there is a "movement" component), but it's rather about energy management.  Everyone always talks about time management, but sometimes time is out of your hands and there is a finite number of hours in the day.  Your energy, on the other hand, is something that you always have control over.

That sounds a little more New Age-y than it is...I promise.  You have to build on your physical or basic energy in order to optimize your other energy (emotional, mental, and spiritual).  It's very Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs for all you nerds out there. 

And while I love the Corporate Athlete program (and desperately would love to be a certified instructor), this is not about that program either.  This post is about Kind Bars. 

While in this Corporate Athlete program, one of my co-workers who was leading the training mentioned finding Kind Bars.  It took me a while until I tried one.  And as soon as I did, it was love. ...But first let me tell you a story....

I was working out with a trainer (a trainer trainer, not a Corporate Athlete trainer, sadly) and she suggested I try one of those protein bars as a good supplement to the cardio and weight training she was having me do.  This was a woman who was supposed to have my overall health in mind.  A woman who was helping me trim down.  I tried the protein bar she suggested.  "I like the chocolate chip cookie dough flavor."  (That should have been the first red flag.)  It had the texture of all those other protein bars - chewy beyond belief, a serious test for any dental work.  And sweet.  Good lord was it sweet.  So I turned it over to check out the ingredients.

And there they were.  The first five ingredients.  (And remember, this was supposed to SUPPORT my HEALTH and help me LOSE WEIGHT.)  #1- corn syrup.  #2- high fructose corn syrup.  #3- calcium caseinate.  #4- sugar.  #5-fractionated palm kernel oil.  Did I mention this young woman said she was getting a masters in nutrition??

Okay.  Out of the first five we've got two kinds of corn syrup, one of the worst oils we can get, something I can't pronounce, and good ole sugar.  No wonder it was sweet.  yikes.

Now back to the Kind Bar.  Basically, it's made of things that not only can be pronounced but also are actually good for you.  The first one I had was the Cranberry Almond bar.  Tasty doesn't begin to describe it.  It tastes like...well...what it should taste like - cranberries and almonds.  If you look at the first five ingredients (there are a total of 9 compared to 40 in the other bar)  they are #1-almonds. #2-dried cranberries. #3-macadamias. #4-honey. Okay...the fifth ingredient seems to be basically just a nicer way to say corn syrup (from what I can tell), but at least it's not genetically modified.  :-)

The next two bars I have tried by them (I have about another 8 waiting on my kitchen counter) were equally delicious.  For breakfast one morning when in a rush, I had the Fruits and Nuts in Yogurt bar.  Yum.  And then tonight for dessert (when I really wanted to go out and get some ice cream), I had the Sesame and Peanuts with Chocolate bar.  Certainly healthier than a pint of Blue Bell. 

Tomorrow I'm going to try to continue my Kind affair with a Almonds & Apricots bar.  It is, indeed, love.