A Wider Circle's Great Eight

This year in Silver Spring Ben & Jerry’s Free Cone Day (held every April) featured volunteers from A Wider Circle,* a local organization which furnishes homes, provides clothing and trains people for the workforce in the D.C. area.  Every year on Free Cone Day, Ben & Jerry’s give away free ice cream** and they host a charity who is allowed to fundraise in the store.***  Give the charity a few dollars and you get a key ring tag for 10% off on ice cream for the next twelve months.  In addition to the free ice cream.

So, really, one isn’t just scarfing down free ice cream, one is being a philanthropist. 

Anyway, this year was A Wider Circle’s opportunity and the nice volunteers handed out information on the organization and how to help.  I still have the bookmark they gave me with “The Great Eight” on it.  If you are looking for a quick shopping list of “things to buy but not for me” and have donated enough boxes of pasta and cans of veggies for a while, they suggest:

1.  Tissues and toilet paper

2.  Laundry detergent

3.  Whole grain pasta****

4.  Low-sodium beans

5.  Paper towels and cleaning supplies

6.  Cereal and oatmeal

7.  Diapers

8.  Low-sodium, low-sugar canned fruits and vegetables.

I take food with me for the food bank every time I go to church and every so often the shelter gets some of my beloved hotel toiletries.  I’ll probably go to the store this weekend and pick up some paper goods for donation.   

*From their website:  “A Wider Circle’s efforts focus on the provision of basic need items, education, and long-term support. These three components work in concert to create lasting change in the lives of those we serve. A Wider Circle says no to nobody! Anyone in need of help can find it here. In addition to all of the individuals and families that call us, more than 300 government, social service, and nonprofit agencies regularly contact us for help in serving their clients.

Items can be dropped off 7 day a week, 365 days a year at our Center for Community Service: 9159 Brookville Road, Silver Spring, MD 20910.”

**which is awesome

*** Last year it was the Washington Animal Rescue League, so … kittens!  And puppies!

**** Or gluten-free …

Raisins

I once asked my Mom why she didn't like raisins very much and she said that she had a cookie once that she thought was chocolate chip and it was really oatmeal raisin.  And that she has never forgiven those raisins.

So it's really a pity that I can't show this to her.

The bisque is recommended

Fenner also spent a few years in Washington, working for the Justice Department, and he shared quite a few meals there with John E. Smith, a lawyer from Atchison, Kansas, not far down the Missouri River from St. Jo, who was then working for Senator Dole and later became the house attorney of an Omaha trucking company.  Fenner still likes to talk to Smith about eating in Washington - the Cuban food at the Omega and the Middle Eastern food at the Calvert Cafe and the chili at Hazel's Texas Chili Parlor.  Fenner believes that Hazels' recipe was so secret that she carried it with her to the grave, although some other Washington eaters believe that it was handed down intact to a man with a tattoo, and still others believe that it was not the sort of recipe anyone would have to guard very closely.*  Fenner's favorite restaurant in the Washington area was the renowned Silver Spring fish house called Crisfield Seafood Restaurant.  He misses practically everything about Crisfield's. 

"They know how to treat children," I heard him say once. 

"They know how to treat oysters," said Morisseau, who did some eating in Washington himself.**

My Dad used to have lunch at Crisfield's pretty often because it was just a few blocks up Georgia Avenue from Hopkins APL where he worked, but I have an even better connection to Trillin's paragraph:  Two of the people who "knew how to treat children" at Crisfield's were Ned and Nancy, my friend Mollie's parents.  Ned ran the raw bar and Nancy ran the cash register and you'll never meet two nicer people.

I got to know them during the years that Mollie and I were housemates and during part of that time Mollie was the day care provider / favorite aunt / playmate for then babies and later toddlers, Charles and Samantha. Mollie's folks are the kids adopted grandparents and even though Ned and Nancy have retired to North Carolina, the families are still close with lots of visiting.  They do know how to treat children.



*Crisfield's is still open in the same location.  Omega closed after a fire.  The Calvert Cafe was renamed Mama Ayesha's in 1994 after its founder Mama Ayesha Abraham, who died in 1993.  It's still be run by her family.  And Hazel's Texas Chili Parlor is also closed but is the gastronomic mother, if not legal entity parent, of chili parlor chain Hard Times.  This article from DC's City Paper tells the fascinating story.

**Alice, Let's Eat by Calvin Trillin.  Page 122 in the 1978 copy of the Vintage Books paperbook I have.

A change to the menu

I took Pekoe into the shop because you're supposed to do that every so often.  And because he'll be 13 in January, thus making him officially an Old Guy Cat.  And because (hmmm ... how to put this delicately ...) I was seeing something in the litter box that looked not as solid as would be considered optimal.

He is generally good tempered, has a good appetite.  He's energetic and uses his litter box.  So I really had nothing to worry about, per se, but again, he's an senior cat* and I would hate to find out that he had something we could fix had I only brought him in in time.


So I got his fabulous cat carrier out of the closet and let him play with it** and took him in to see The Vet.

It turns out that Mr. Elderly Feline has -- depending on who you ask -- either Kidney Failure or Chronic Kidney Disease.  This is not uncommon for geezer cats.  (Which made it not one tiny bit less disconcerting for me to hear.  This guy has been my pal and companion for 12 years and I love him a lot.)  And no matter what you chose to call it, the short answer is that Pekoe has a medical situation that is serious but not acute and will need to be managed.

That's the bad news.  The good news is that "managing" his health situation will not require that I give him a pill every day.  He ... doesn't like pills.

We put him on a "bland diet," which means that instead of the crunchy dry cereal that he is so fond of, I now feed him baby food.  Pureed chicken or beef or turkey with broth.***  I wasn't sure how he'd feel about that because he does love his crunchy dry cereal and usually ignores most meat-based human food, but he loved it. Loved.  It.  You'd have thought I was feeding him chocolate covered donuts.  He greets me at the door, usually with a "Yay, you're home!  I missed you!" kind of attitude.  Now he greets me with "Yay, you're home!  Let's open another of those jars!"

The Vet gave (read = sold) me some new crunchy dry cereal that is made by Hills and is specially formulated for cats with kidney issues (K/D).  I mix some of that into the baby food which slightly reduces his laser-like focus on the baby food because with the cereal mixed in, he fills up faster and doesn't gulp it down like a 7-year old at a birthday party.  So it's more like plain donuts ...

I'll soon be buying K/D wet food from the internet.  (The internet delivers.  The vet does not.)  Soon Pekoe will get something like wet food for breakfast and dry food for dinner or some such and I don't anticipate any transition issues because his approach as a former stray has always been "You're feeding me?  Again today? How cool is that!"

However ... the subcutaneous hydration?  Not sure he's going to be such a fan. Stay tuned for Leta and Pekoe's adventures with needles.


*One chart I saw broke cat ages into four levels:  up to 1 year = kitten; 1 year + = adult; 7 years + = mature; and 11 years + = senior.

** He loves that carrier and treats it like his own personal clubhouse.  I may have to just put him in there every so often and walk him around just for fun so that he doesn't start to think of it as the Theme Park Ride That Only Goes to the Vet.

***Strong recommendation:  Beechnut.  It's the only baby food I found that was, in fact, meat and meat broth instead of meat and corn starch.  Because the vet, for some reason, didn't suggest that I give Pekoe a daily serving or two of corn starch.  He didn't say not to, but even so ...

Tasty, tasty virtue

Garlic Mustard (Alliaria petiolata*) is an aggressive non-native herbaceous plant that was originally brought to the US as a culinary herb.   Now, sort of like Norwegian grey squirrels and ... well, my ancestors ... it's relatively attractive stuff that elbows out the natives and hogs resources.  

So garlic mustard is fair game for the urban/backyard conservationist.  Or forager.  I spent a day with the Friends of Sligo Creek a year or so ago pulling and bagging the stuff.  You have to bag it up, rather than let it compost in place because as soon as you turn your back on it, it drops seeds or sends out new shoots and is back in residence faster than a graduating senior with no solid job prospects.

The goal of the FOSC RIP ("Remove Invasive Plants") that day was to get as much of the garlic mustard out of the park as possible, so all we did was pull it out of the ground completely, stuff it in the bag, and move on.

It was afterwards that I found recipes using garlic mustard.**  Somehow knowing that I can turn an invasive plant into a yummy sauce to drizzle on pasta makes pulling weeds much more fun.  And yet, still so very virtuous.  I will save my beloved Maryland from this alien herb *and* adding a locally grown ingredient in my dinner!


There is garlic mustard growing on the hillside behind my apartment building.  So after I walk home tonight, I'll go collect enough to give me "3 cups Garlic Mustard leaves, washed, patted dry, and packed in a measuring cup."  I would collect it from Sligo Creek Park, except that I understand that one needs permission to do remove plants from the Park and I'd lose a fair bit of my sense of virtue if I get busted for poaching during the harvest.


And, just to save you that one one more click, here's the recipe I'll be using:

Garlic Mustard Pesto

• 3 cups Garlic Mustard leaves, washed, patted dry, and packed in a measuring cup
• 2 large garlic cloves, peeled & chopped
• 1 cup Walnuts
• 1 cup Olive Oil
• 1 cup grated Parmesan Cheese
• 1/4 cup grated Romano Cheese (or more Parmesan)
• Salt & Pepper to taste

Combine Garlic Mustard leaves, garlic and walnuts in food processor and chop. Or divide recipe in half and use a blender. With motor running, add olive oil slowly. Shut off motor. Add cheeses, salt & pepper. Process briefly to combine.

Serve warm over pasta or spread on crackers as a appetizer. It also makes a great topping for baked fish.


http://www.monchesfarm.com/PESTO.htm

* Okay, that's really for David.  He loves proper scientific names.


** Oh.  You'd like them, too? Is this what you're looking for?  I thought it might be ...


*** Ancient Harvest quinoa pasta, natch!  It's my favorite gluten-free pasta.

Kitchen Rules

Everybody's office has different kitchen rules.  Here are a couple of ours:

Today someone put a cake in the kitchen at work and our controller and I found it.  He wasn't sure what the deal was but I pointed out that the presence of plates, forks, and no sign saying "Can't Touch This" meant that the cake was being shared.  I also told him that it was up to him to take the first piece.  Someone had to start the darn thing and we know that because it's filled with gluten, I can't.

He was convinced that this was some kind of trap.  I promised him that if it were not meant to be shared, it wouldn't be unguarded in the kitchen.  C'mon, engineers work here. College interns.  Those folks can strip an entire box of donuts in a few seconds.

So I said that if he started the cake and anyone gave him any crap, he could refer them to me.  "I got your back. I'll explain."  "You'll say you never said any such thing."  "Exactly.  I might even say that I'd never met you."

He started the cake.  We found out later that it was leftover from a birthday party the evening before and intended for general consumption.

Rule #1:  Food left unguarded is for sharing.  Candy you don't want to share should be kept on your side of the computer screen or in a desk drawer.  Anything out in the open is intended for all.

Rule #2:  You move your feet ...  Most frozen entrees require heating, stirring, and more heating.  A lot of people put their food in for the first three minutes and then wander off.  I know I do.  We have a "move your feet you lose your seat" approach to the microwave.  If the microwave dinged for my food and you're waiting to heat your food, take mine out, put it on the top of the microwave, and put yours in.  Sometimes new people hover near the microwave, reluctant to mess with someone else's lunch, but we quickly enough train them to our ways.

I don't know how other kitchens work but I've been working here so long I don't think that I could change my ways.

Perspective

Voiceover in the Barilla pasta ad:  "I believe that wheat is a gift from God."
Me to David: "I don't."*


*Although I do like to describe many, many things by quoting Phyllis_Schlafly's opinion of (no kidding) nuclear weapons:  A wonderful gift from a wise and loving God.

Chocolate?

It is possible that one of our staffers didn't use this as his model, but as he gives me a Hershey bar whenever I do a favor for him, I have my suspicions ...

Chocolate?

Pie!!

I heisted this from my adorable pal, Tommy's*, post on Google Buzz.**

Single Serving Pie in a Jar

I'm going to get some gluten-free pie crust from Whole Foods and make myself some pies.

I'm also going to make several to take to my Dad's so that I can have pie at Thanksgiving and Christmas without either throwing out the crust (sad face) or bringing a gluten-free pie from Whole Foods that looks kind of mashed, as they always do, and that everyone else ignores which makes me feel all ghetto-ized about my food (put upon face).


*I would link to his blog but he last updated it over a year ago. Tommy ... dude ...

*Remember when we used to find things out by talking to each other? Yeah, that's so last century.

Kasha & friends

With all the snow we've had, I've run through most of my usual favorite recipes and I did a fairly limited shop during the last clear day we had (Monday), so I've decided that it's time to go to the perishables at the back of the cabinet for inspiration.

I found a box of Kasha which is - and I am not making this up - buckwheat* groats. Yes! Groats! How cool is that? And even though there were directions on the side of the box, I found a recipe for Kasha in the next-up contestant in the Leta-cooks-her-way-thorugh-all-those-damn-cookbooks reality show.

The recipe is absurdly easy to make, so I gussied it up a bit, for a couple of reasons: 1. It felt more like a one-dish meal post-gussying; and 2. A nice big bowl of plain groats for dinner is too peasanty, even for me.

I still have plenty in the box and will probably make Kasha again soon, but I may have to try it without the egg, just to see what that does to the final product.

Kasha (Buckwheat Groats)
The Molly Goldberg Jewish Cookbook, page 124, published 1955

(I made a half recipe, but this is the full one)

1 cup Kasha, medium or coarse
1 egg
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups boiling water

Mix the kasha, egg, and salt in a saucepan. Place over low heat and cook, stirring constantly, until each grain is dry and separate. Add boiling water; cover and cook over low heat 12 to 15 minutes, or until dry and tender.

Serve as a substitute for rice or potatoes, or use as directed in recipe. This recipe makes about 3 1/2 to 4 cups.

The gussying consisted of sautéing some onions and garlic in olive oil and adding them, along with some chopped spinach after about half the water was absorbed into the kasha. Because, really, could it hurt?


*Nope, buckwheat isn't really wheat. It's a whole nuther grain.

Brussels Sprouts with Bacon

Last year I resolved to make one new recipe a month during the year, using the cookbooks that take up an entire baker's rack in my kitchen. Somehow that didn't happen,* although I did make some fresh peas at one point and had to look up how long to boil them.**

But a new year doesn't require new resolutions, just renewed resolve...

I had bought some Brussels sprouts at the local farmers' market which I had recently learned was now year-round. I had needed to pick up a pound of ground bison meat for some chili I would be making for the office chili cook-off and the Brussels sprouts were just a happy surprise. I rinsed them when I got home the day I bought them and popped them into a bowl in the fridge. I ate a few raw now and again (crunchy and yummy!) as I was doing other things, but tonight I decided it was Time to Cook the Brussels Sprouts.

One of the reasons that I love Brussels sprouts is that my Mom made them beautifully. She'd cut the stems off, make little Xs in the bottom, boil them in just enough water to cover, drain them and replace in the pot, add butter, salt, and pepper, and then cover lightly with a wax paper circle for a few minutes. They were the definition of "crisp-tender" and sooo tasty.

I knew the basic premise, but - again - needed specifics.

As I also had some bacon that was also reaching its Use It Today point and figuring that I could accomplish several things at once, I pulled out the cookbook that is upper left in the bakers rack: The James Beard Cookbook (1959. Well, 1967 in paper).*** It had been Mom's and several of the recipes have her mark, i.e., the date of the first time she made the recipe. Mr. Beard eschews both the Xs in the bottoms and the wax paper circle, so his recipe is a trifle simpler than Mom's but I think her Brussels sprouts are still the best. Also, the next time I make this I think I won't boil them as long as Mr. Beard suggests as the sprouts were softer than I prefer. But all in all? Pretty darn tasty.

Brussels Sprouts with Bacon
The James Beard Cookbook, page 446 & 447

1 quart or 1 pound of Brussels sprouts
Water
Salt & pepper
4 tablespoons of melted butter (not necessary for the bacon variation)

Trim the stems off close to the sprouts and remove any discolored leaves. Put the sprouts to soak for 15 to 20 minutes in water to which you have added 1 teaspoon of salt.

In a kettle put enough water to cover the Brussels sprouts and add 1 teaspoon of salt. Bring this to a boil and add the vegetable. Do not cover. Cook gently until just tender when pierced with a fork. This should take about 15 minutes.

Drain well and seve with melted butter and salt and pepper to taste (skip for bacon variation)

Some people like a dash of vinegar or some lemon juice added.

With Bacon

Prepare as for Boiled Brussels Sprouts (see above), and while the sprouts are cooking, fry 6 slices of bacon. When crisp, remove and chop fine. Drain off all but 4 tablespoons of the bacon fat. Return the chopped bacon to the pan and add the cooked and drained sprouts. Season with 1 tablespoon of grated onion.

I added the BSwB to some gluten-free rotini pasta. It was, in all, a lovely dinner that I look forward to making again some time.

Next up? The Molly Goldberg Jewish Cookbook.

*I also resolved to walk to work on days when a) the temperature was above 40 degrees as I was getting dressed and b) if I didn't have to be somewhere immediately after work. That one worked out rather well, so I'm repeating it again this year as well.

**About ten minutes, up to 15 for larger peas.

***All of the books in my home are filed alphabetically by author except for cookbooks which are by size, smallest to largest. If I am able to stick with this project, the one on the bottom shelf right is my Provence the Beautiful Cookbook**** Technically, the cookbook to the absolute left is another James Beard cookbook dealing with Hors d'Oeuvre and Canapes, but that sort of book is usually rather thin on recipes for Brussels Sprouts.

****By which, I assume, was meant a cookbook about Beautiful Provence, rather than a beautiful cookbook, although as it is a coffe-table type book with lots of food-porn illustrations, it's certainly a darn fetching book.

A nice compromise

I was a Girl Scout. My elementary school was somewhat haphazard about sponsoring scout troops, so I was involved in scouting about every other year. But I absorbed a fair bit about lanyards and uniforms and campfire songs. And I sold cookies. Back in the old days we went door-to-door because, as my mother put it, "I'm not taking any cookie order forms to work. This is your project and you are responsible for it." So I went door-to-door taking orders and a few weeks later I went door-to-door with my little red wagon (truly) and delivered the goods.

Girl Scouts no longer go door-to-door because it's just not safe. It probably wasn't safe back when I did it, but we didn't know that. Instead the order form appears at the office. And Celiac Disease or no, as a former Girl Scout, I am morally obligated to pay those cookies forward.

Luckily for me, my very good friend, the Gleeful Gecko, believes in the Girl Scouts and their cookies. And has a birthday coming up. In a division of labor that works for both of us, I will buy the cookies and he will consume them.

It's rather a pity that I can't deal with all of my moral obligations as easily.

Snowpocalypse Tomato Soup

The DC area is covered in snow. At first we were told that we'd get a few inches on Saturday. Then it was a few inches on Saturday and some on Sunday. By the end of the day on Friday, the predictions no longer included the word "inches." We were expecting one to two feet of snow over the weekend.

It was snowing by the time that I left the theater at 9:45 pm. (The Best Christmas Pageant Ever is basically an extended one-act.) Just a light dusting, but coming down pretty steadily. I had drinks and gumbo* at a friend's house and set out for home around 1:15 am. By then the roads were snow-coated and slippery, so the driving required a decent level of skill and focus.** I was home by 2:00 am.

Today's performances having been cancelled, I got to have an at-home day. There were several inches on the ground this morning and we're over a foot now. It's still coming down pretty briskly. The Blizzard Warning has shifted to a Winter Storm warning and is expected to last until about 6:00 am.

So for lunch I made tomato soup from scratch. I looked through my cookbooks for ideas and then sort of went my own way. It was easy and tasty and I'm glad that I made a large enough batch that I have leftovers. Here's what I did:

Snowpocalypse Tomato Soup

Peel and mince 2 cloves of garlic;
Mince a quarter of a medium onion;
Sauté the the garlic and onion in a generous splash of olive oil over a low flame while considering whether to add some Vermouth to the recipe;

Open two 14-ounce cans of diced tomatoes and empty into a two-quart pot;
Warm the tomatoes and add the garlic and onion;
Stir and decide yes on the Vermouth - pour in a healthy splash;
Add a cheerful amount of oregano, parsley, and thyme;
Shake in Cayenne pepper until you think you may have overdone it;

Let it all simmer for a little bit, then ladle about half into the blender;
Blend on "chop" for a few seconds;
Pour it back into the pot;
Let it simmer a little longer for good measure;

Grate enough good cheese over it to bring a smile to your face;
Finish with salt and pepper to taste.



*Really good gumbo, with okra and gumbo file. Must get the recipe ...
**Snow driving tip: Proceed at a moderate speed, stay away from the brake pedal. Would that everyone else on the road with me knew that.

Valuable lessons from Old Time Radio

"It's the olives that do it, not the Martinis!"

Johnny Dollar in "The Confidential Matter" episode of Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar

Beets - the worst vegetable ever

Quinn and I are quite different in someways, I'm extroverted and like Facebook; she's introverted and likes Twitter, but there's one way in which we are soulmates.

I despise beets in any form. Canned, baked, precious little heirloom ones on a fancy salad, they all taste like iron filings to me. I’d sooner lick a handrail; same flavor and you’re done faster. But beets are very good for you and I’ve always felt badly that I hadn’t given them more of a chance, when I wasn’t shooing them off to the corner of my plate. I’d eat a jar-egg and it would taste in some way of beets and even if I never did another brave thing in my life, I’d have that. If Daughter flinches at the sight of a Brussels sprout, I can lean over to her and say knowingly, “At least it’s not marinated in beets.”

A few years ago when some friends and I participated in CSA*, Stacey and I had half share each**. When the food arrived each week, Stace and I would divvy up our share and try to figure out what we had. Our general fall-back was that if we didn't recognize a vegetable, it couldn't hurt to roast it. This is a very good rule. Well, for everything except lettuce. Just don't even roast lettuce.

Anyway, for a while there we were getting ourselves some beets. We tried all kinds of ways to prepare them and no matter what we did, they remained beets. Roasted beets? They are beets with a slightly less horrible than usual exterior.

So if Quinn is willing to eat a beet-marinated jar-egg in order to set a good example for her daughter (or at least not lose too much of the moral high ground), I can but admire her. Would that I had the same strength of character. Because while I would get up at dawn if I had to in order to provide a good example, I am not eating anything marinated in beets.


*Community Supported Agriculture, or Tree Hugger Food.

**There are four people at Stacey's house. My house is me and the not-very-vegetable-eating cat. Even a half share resulted in much soup being made from the left-overs of each week's bounty.

***Don't know what a jar-egg is? Read her post. But not, perhaps, over lunch.

Of course it does

I am enjoying Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma*, but this bit made me laugh:

"Angelo called it rapini, and said the young leaves were delicious sautéed in olive oil and garlic."

Because, really, aren't most things delicious when they are sautéed in olive oil and garlic?


*As I was typing this my fingers really, really wanted me to misspell "dilemma." Which meant that I kept seeing "The Omnivore's Deli." And you know? That sounds pretty good. I know I'd stop in.

Thanks, Mr. Keillor

"The Episcopal Church - where the Lamb is free-range."

paraphrased from the "A Prairie Home Companion" re-run this weekend.

On the shopping list

My church, like most churches, has baskets in the narthex* to collect nonperishable food for the hungry. As the food went to Silver Spring HELP, the baskets were informally known as the HELP baskets.

I've been contributing off and on all my life, usually whatever random staple I happened to have on hand as I was leaving for church. And after Mom moved from her apartment to Old People's Prison**, I put all the gluten-containing food from her kitchen in the HELP baskets, which was rather a bonus because Mom had pretty wide tastes in food and she didn't buy store brands too often.

I haven't worried too much about what I was putting in the baskets, but ITE*** food and money are walking a little closer together in everyone's minds. I've mentioned before that gluten-free food often costs more and is harder to find than "regular" food. I'm not talking about gluten-free cupcakes, but a more standard cupboard item: breakfast cereal. I gave up eating breakfast cereal when I couldn't find any that either wasn't sweetened with barley malt (which has gluten) or didn't cost a depressing amount of money.

Chex Cereals (owned by General Mills) has recently taken the barley malt out of Rice Chex and replaced it with molasses. They also work to prevent cross-contamination, making these cereals appropriate for Celiacs. This is good news, but cereal is still - comparatively - an expensive food item and food pantries often mention that it is something that they run out of quickly.

So if you read this blog and if you contribute to your local food pantry, I am asking a favor. Please consider buying a few gluten-free items when considering what to donate.

Some suggestions:

Nature's Path - they're Canadian! They must be nice.

EnviroKidz cereals**** - Thanks to my friend Doug I have a sentimental attachment to the Leapin' Lemurs cereal;

Rice Chex;

Amy's Organic soups - Several soups are gluten-free (and clearly marked so) and a few are even corn-free. (And if there is an allergy more annoying than gluten, it's corn because HFCS is in every damn thing.)



*lobby
** Come on, really, if the door to your room gets shut and someone else has to open it, or else you can't leave your room, isn't that rather prison-like? If you can't go into the courtyard unless someone holds the door open; if your vitamins are confiscated by the staff; if you get out of bed and go to bed on their schedule - doesn't that justify the phrasing?
***ITE = In This Economy. Thanks, David for the initialism.
****Nature's Path owns Envirokidz

Treat of the Week

When Sara and I were kids my Mom instituted something that even then I thought was really smart and admire more as an adult: The Treat of the Week.

We would go to the grocery store with Mom every Saturday and would each be allowed to pick out one treat. One. It could be anything we wanted - and thank goodness we weren't required to share - but it could only be one. One box of sugary cereal? Sure, fine. Two? No. One box of Pop-Tarts filled with chocolate frosting? Sure, fine. Two? No. One entire baked ham? Sure, fine.

Mom didn't put restrictions on what the treat could be,* nor did she parcel it out during the week. We could ration it for the week or eat the whole thing on Saturday when we got home. They were our treats. But once it was gone, it was gone. No more treats until the next Saturday.

Sara and I had a nice sense of empowerment about being allowed to chose our own treats and Mom was the spared an entire grocery store of of us whining for more stuff.

For what was probably several months straight, Sara and I each chose a tube of chocolate chip cookie dough. We'd keep it in the freezer and snack on it, usually making it last until the next week.

Instead of baking the cookies, we'd eat the dough raw**, sometimes cutting off lady-like pieces, sometimes just gnawing on it straight from the tube, which prett' near grossed Mom out of existence but as the rule about not micromanaging our Weekly Treats was hers, she'd just arrange to be out of the kitchen whenever we went looking for a snack. She was probably grateful during that period that she worked a sixty-hour week because if I was awake, I was probably looking around for a snack.***

As an adult I was delighted when Ben and Jerry's introduced Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough ice cream and considered it an homage to the Treat of the Week whenever I had some. Then I got that stupid auto-immune disorder and can no longer eat CCCD ice cream.

But thanks to Whole Foods I can at least go back to having random bits of raw cookie dough. Until they realize how much I like it and discontinue carrying it, they have gluten-free cookie dough made by a company called French Meadow that tastes remarkably like anybody else's cookie dough.**** It comes already sliced, which while reducing the level of just-like-when-I-was-a-kid inheirant in consuming raw "food," it does make it more office-friendly.

I buy a couple of boxes, put one in the freezer and one in the fridge, and most days after lunch I wander down to the "coffee mess" and collect one to nibble on back at my desk. Corporate at our company (I work for Corporate) is pretty much a junior UN so no one questions any one's possibly odd-looking food.

It's from Whole Foods and it's gluten-free so it costs enough to enforce a one-per day rationing.

And there are nine per box, so it's more like Treat of the Every Other Week.


* Which is an impressive example of self-control as most of our choices probably made her gag.
** See what I mean?
** This is still true. I am constantly hungry.
**** In the gluten-free world, tasting like the ordinary product is a very good thing.

Be it resolved

I don't make many New Year's resolutions, but this year I did come up with two that I think I can live with*:

1. If the temperature is above 40 degrees as I am getting dressed and I don't have to be somewhere immediately after, I will walk to work.

Progress report: So far, so good. Or so far, not so good. The only day the temp was above 40 so far this work year, was the day that I had to return the laptop to the office, so I drove.** All other days were cold or cold & rainy.

I will probably have to walk on Inauguration Day not matter how cold it might be as all the bridges from Virginia to DC will be closed and I live on a major Maryland to downtown DC route, so getting out of the parking lot for my building could possibly take all day.

2. I will cook at least one thing from one of my cookbooks each month. My friend Stephanie, who lives in Michigan, made the same resolution so we going to cook together long distance. Whenever one of us tries a new recipe, we'll e-mail the other and say what cookbook it came from and what we thought of it. David thought it sounded like a cool idea and would also like to play.

What prompted this resolution for me is that when Mom did the apartment to Very Assisted Living downsize, I got many of her cookbooks. So I have lots of cookbooks in kitchen and if they are going to take up that much real estate - they completely fill the roughly two-foot wide, four shelf baker's rack - they should get used.

I'm utterly dying to use a cookbook of my own that I've had for years, The Norman Table, largely because it's pretty and prett' near every recipe calls for Calvados. Just for fun, though, I decided to start with the top shelf and work from left to right. And as I shelf my cookbooks by height, I am basically going from shortest to tallest.

The other "rules" for this game***:

1. The recipe should be one I've never made before. No fair using the recipe for Cinnamon Toast from my Winnie-the-Pooh cookbook. Turn to a different page, girl! Show some initiative!

2. The first time I make the recipe, I will prepare it as written. Henceforth, I can use the text as a series of suggestions. Except for flour substitutions, of course.

3. Mom always put the date under a recipe if she was making it for the first time and it's nice to see that in her old cookbooks. I think I'll give preference to recipies with dates in her handwriting. And I'll add my dates.

First up is the James Beard Cookbook, which has dates in Mom's handwriting and my teenage handwriting.


*If I really need a third, I could add something easy and fun like "spend more time watching tv with a cat on my lap." The cat would definitely vote for that.

**Carrying a laptop that one does not own for a mile is: a) heavy, and b) asking for a trip-and-fall.

***Which only apply to me. I'm not goat-roping Stephanie or David.