Though the boys worked like dogs and the food was delicious, for a variety of reasons, the concept failed to thrive and not just in our case, but in virtually every franchise that was bought outside the Dallas area, save for the ones in St. Louis, MO. Chief among the reasons were that although the preparation of the delicious, made-from-scratch food was labor intensive and the top quality ingredients were costly, the prices-to-the-consumer set by the franchiser were more in line with a Taco Bell, meaning that the resultant margins were shaved razor thin. One tiny misstep and you were in the red.

(If you're in St. Louis or Dallas and get a chance to visit one of the few stores that are still open, pop by and enjoy the fresh salsa bar and some really authentic, inexpensive food from the interior of Mexico. The food is fabulous, though not low carb, so if you go, go armed with a couple of your own low carb tortillas and enjoy the salsa, salad, and a Chile Relleno or the Pollo Asado, if they're still doing it.)

And after a couple of years of struggle and 16+ hour days for low pay, the kids had had enough; we all cut our losses and moved on. Our eldest son moved on to marriage and law school, our middle son went west to pursue his movie making dreams in Hollywood, and our youngest son, who had already headed off to college, kept on doing his thing at the College of Santa Fe, relieved that he'd never again be called upon to bus tables at the restaurant when he came home during breaks from school.

Owning a restaurant always seemed like a romantic notion: the sea of contented diners, eating delicious food in the peaceful dining room.

The hard reality (at least in our experience) is that whatever is going on out front in the dining room, behind the swinging door, the work is grueling and often thankless, the margins are slim, and the help notoriously unreliable. You have to absolutely love the restaurant biz to withstand the hours, the pressure, and the never-ending grind.

Mike had it right when on the night of our grand opening, at about 11:30 pm when, after everything was finally cleaned up and they could sit down at last and have a beer, our eldest son remarked, "Well, Dad, we've finally got us a ZuZu."

Mike sighed and shook his head and said,"No, son, it's got us."

And that's the truth of it. Once you're open in a restaurant, you're open and the work just never quits. It's like Sisyphus in Greek mythology. Cursed by the gods for his treachery, he labored all day each day to push a giant boulder up a steep hill only to have it roll down to the bottom just when he neared the top, so that he'd have to begin all over again.

I anyone reading this ever hears me say I'd like to open another restaurant, slap me hard until I recant!

I am deeply grateful, however, that there are people in the world who love the restaurant biz and do it well, so that I can go to fabulous restaurants and enjoy good food and impeccable service in a beautiful, peaceful dining room and never ever again have to go behind the swinging door to the "back" of the house, where all is often chaos.

The ZuZu experience had its virtues, though. For one, we all know how to cook some really excellent fresh and flavorful Mexican recipes, one of which was for a luscious tortilla soup, which I've been craving since my recent bout with upper respiratory misery has left my taste buds sort of wanting some spice. The original soup recipe was made with lots of real corn tortillas, homemade chicken broth, and lots of fresh roasted peppers and spice. In the intervening years I've tinkered with that original recipe to make a lower carb, easier version, which, if I do say so myself, is delicious.

And, in plenty of time for Cinco de Mayo, here it is:

Tortilla Soup
Serves 4

Ingredients for the soup

2 tablespoons olive oil (divided use)
1/2 pound spicy breakfast sausage
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon chili powder
½ teaspoon coarse sea salt
½ teaspoon ground black pepper
¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper, optional to desired heat level
2 cloves garlic, minced finely
1 small yellow onion, diced
1 small fresh pasilla (or poblano) chile pepper, seeded and diced
1 (4-ounce) can fire roasted diced green chiles, mild or hot
1 (14-ounce) can fire roasted diced canned tomatoes
1 quart chicken broth
2 small low carb flour tortillas, cut into ½" strips

For the garnish
1 small low carb flour tortilla
½ teaspoon olive oil
¼ teaspoon ground cumin
¼ teaspoon chili powder
1/8 teaspoon fine salt
1/8 teaspoon black pepper

2 tablespoons fresh cilantro, minced
4 teaspoons Mexican cream or sour cream

1.) Preheat oven to 325 degrees for baking the garnish tortillas.
2.) In a soup pot on the stovetop, heat 1 tablespoon of the olive oil over medium heat, add the pork sausage, breaking it up with a spoon; season with the cumin, chili powder, salt, pepper, and cayenne, and brown. Remove the cooked sausage from the pan and drain in a bowl lined with paper towels to the side, covered with foil to retain the heat.
3.) Add the remaining 1 tablespoon of olive oil to the pan, add garlic, onion, and fresh chile pepper and sauté over medium heat until the onion is translucent and the peppers softened.
4.) Add the tomatoes and their juice, the canned chile peppers, and the broth, stirring to combine.
5.) Add the strips of soft tortilla, stirring well to distribute them throughout; increase heat to bring soup to a boil, then reduce heat to medium low and let simmer for 15-20 minutes.
6.) Meanwhile, prepare the garnish. Combine all the spices in a small bowl and mix well.
7.) Brush the garnish tortilla with the olive oil, sprinkle lightly with the spice mixture, and cut into ¼" to ½" strips.
8.) Separate the strips, place on a wire rack in the hot oven, and bake for about 10 to15 minutes or until crisp.
9.) Puree the hot soup with an immersion blender. (Alternatively, transfer soup to a blender or food processor and process until mostly smooth. If using a blender, proceed very carefully, holding the blender lid on with a folded kitchen towel to prevent eruption. Puree in two batches if necessary to avoid overfilling the blender jar.)
10.) (If using alternate method, return the pureed soup to the pan). Add the cooked sausage to the soup, and stir to combine and reheat thoroughly.
11.) Ladle the soup into four bowls, garnish each with the chopped fresh cilantro, a squiggle of Mexican Creme or dollop of sour cream and a 'haystack' of baked spicy tortilla strips.

Protein per serving: 14 grams
Effective carb per serving: 12 grams

You could drop the carb content a bit by omitting the 2 tortillas that thicken the soup; the taste would be generally the same, but the consistency would be different and it wouldn't be tortilla soup! Enjoy!

Somehow, with the days of self-imposed vocal cord rest (which included doing the Ashlee Simpson and lip-synching the orchestra rehearsals Wednesday night, Friday night and Saturday afternoon) and the miracles of modern medicine--which included, a veritable witches' brew of herbs, gallons of tea, dozens of lemons, vitamins, minerals, prescription and over-the-counter medications, taken orally, inhaled, snorted up my nose, and even shot (by my darling husband) into my gluteus maximus just before the Saturday night performance--I was able to hit about 90-95% of the notes required during the demanding seven movements.

Strangely, the high register came in pretty clearly, which was a good thing, since Herr Brahms wrote most of the soprano line at the top of the staff and above it. (Click here to go to the Amazon page for possibly the best recording of the piece with the legendary Robert Shaw conducting the Atlanta Symphony and Orchestra and you can listen to samples and see what I mean.)

There were a few notes that simply weren't reliably there for me, at least in their piano or pianissimo volumes and after the first couple of movements, the mid-staff D left me completely. When I would have to sing it, it was like hitting a piano key that's dead; nothing whatever would come out.

And after the climactic and powerful VI movement, most of which happens for the soprano line way up there at the high F, G, A, and B region, all the notes down there below and including the aforementioned D (the C, B, A, and G going down on the staff) were often absent as well. The bottom of the staff (F and below) remained oddly intact.

Fortunately what came out came out nicely and when it didn't, it was just the absence of sound, which in a chorus of 150 voice doesn't disrupt things too much. Would have been a deal breaker for a soloist, though.

Sunday was a little better for me, though still not 100%. But at least I made it through and got the chance to be a part of an excellent performance of this monumental choral masterpiece.

I learned that I wasn't alone in my misery; probably a dozen of us in the choir had various respiratory and throat maladies that made singing a challenge and worse yet, the SB Symphony's wonderful new maestro, Nir Kaberetti, conducted Saturday night with a temp of 102 F. And he never missed a single cue. Except for slightly longer pauses between movements to mop his fevered brow and regain his breath, you'd never have known he was battling a bug. Amazing dedication to his work and to the audience.

Now that this milestone is behind me, it's on to work on the Spring Concert repertoire, which is Haydn's Theresienmesse (Mass in B) and Morten Lauridsen's Lux Aeterna, which the choir will also be taking on tour to Italy and Germany this summer, and which, when the time comes, Mike promises to blog about along the way to keep everybody in the loop, both about the performances and about the fabulous food and wine we encounter along the way.

The Choral Society, in addition to being the oldest continuing community performing arts group in the Santa Barbara area, currently in its 59th season, also has a mission of community service in music education. On this summer's upcoming tour, we will be providing full and partial scholarships for approximately 20 deserving young singers, so that they may enrich their musical education through performance abroad. The total cost to do this to the society is about $80,000. We have spent this season raising the funds and are almost, but not quite, there. If any of you music lovers out there would care to contribute to the cause, you may do so by contacting the Choral Society through their website. Tell them MD sent you!

The Santa Barbara Choral Society is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization and your donation (in any amount) is fully tax deductible and you will receive a written receipt. If you can help us fulfill this mission, please do so. And thanks!

As luck would have it, either the copious spring pollen (our black car was positively yellow from it) or some vile bug in the (check all that apply) a) airport b)airplane c)7-year old birthday bash lunch we attended at Chuck E. Cheese left me exiting the plane minus my normal voice and plus a leaking faucet where my nose should be.

I hied myself immediately upon landing to a cup of hot tea with lemon, the Singer's Saving Grace spray bottle, and the Cold Packs I neglected to stuff in my bag before we left home, just in case it wasn't the pollen.

I'm praying for a full recovery, having spent the last four months working on Brahms' demanding choral masterpiece in planes, buses, cars, hotel rooms, and at home, both in SB and Lake Tahoe. I refuse to be done out of performing it by an attack by pollen or microbe, so I've put myself on total voice rest until Saturday night's performance!

Voice rest, of course, doesn't mean body rest and we had a bunch of catching up to do from being gone, so we were out and about pretty much all day. We had to run some errands in the morning and when lunchtime rolled around we found ourselves down on Milpas Street and hungry, so Mike suggested that we head over to The Habit, a Santa Barbara hamburger institution. I agreed, with hand signals and head bobs, since not talking also doesn't mean not eating and The Habit's burgers are to die for.

The Hamburger Habit began as just a single little burger shack out in neighboring Goleta, not too far from UCSB in 1969, but now has grown to a pretty good-sized chain throughout California. If you're ever in Santa Barbara, trust me, it's worth a stop into The Habit. There's one on State Street (where all visitors to the city ultimately wind up) that makes for a convenient place to stop in for lunch.

The one on Milpas has a nice outdoor patio and since (pollen notwithstanding) the day was simply gorgeous, with crystalline blue Mediterranean skies, palm trees swaying, bright flowers everywhere, the scent of citrus blooms and eucalyptus in the breeze, we decided to place our order and take up a table outside.

I love the taste of their Char Burger (with the works, including cheese, bacon, and onions) and Mike nearly always opts for their BBQ Tri-Tip Sandwich, both served 'protein style' wrapped in several crunchy leaves of fresh iceberg lettuce. Today was no different, except that instead of our usual bantering conversation over lunch, I was as silent as a mime as I wolfed down my yummy burger. Smiling and nodding at appropriate moments.

For his part, Mike probably enjoyed having the last word for a change. He better enjoy it while he can, because my silence will be short lived.

To make it easier to use their product in quantity they've thoughtfully packaged it into a single envelope that packs the sweetening punch of 1 cup of sugar, but with only 0.5 gram of carb and just 2 calories. Gone is the debate about fillers and the number of carbs they may (or may not if the maltrodextrin filler is essentially a non-absorbable carb as some have suggested) bring to the table.

Better yet, it means saying goodbye to the hassle of tearing and dumping 24 individual packets!

One cup, of course, is the perfect amount for sweetening, say a 2-quart pitcher of unsweetened KoolAid, which explains its being shelved near the drink mix packets and not on the baking aisle, which, in turn, explains why I've never seen it, since I don't often peruse the drink mixes. It's even a pretty standard amount for baking, if the bulk of sugar isn't needed to make the recipe work. But the real beauty of it to me, since I'm not big into KoolAid, is this: it's perfect for a whipping up a big batch of eggnog or a double batch of margaritas.

Now you're talkin'!

I like sweets and want to reduce intake. I have tried artificially sweetened products but suffer from constipation and bloating ...Is there any way to avoid this or do I have to just reduce regular sugar intake and forget the artificial sweeteners? --MJB

It occurred to me that a number of blog readers have asked similar questions and many others, who haven't written, might also welcome the information, so here's my reply:

It's always been our recommendation that it's a good thing to curb the sweet tooth, so that one can once again perceive the natural sweetness in foods, such as almonds and snap peas, for instance, that most of us can no longer even recognize as sweet. Continuing to bombard the sweet receptors (taste buds) with high intensity sweetness, whether from sugar or from artificial sweeteners will overwhelm that natural perception ability.

Sugar, of course, has an entire spectrum of metabolic consequences apart from its sweetness: elevated blood sugar, which is itself harmful to the kidney's filtering apparatus, excess insulin in the blood to counter that elevated blood sugar, which has a Pandora's box of associated problems. There are a hundred reasons to avoid eating much sugar.

As to artificial sweeteners, they all have their drawbacks: bitter aftertaste, bloating and gas, excitotoxic potential for the brain and nervous system, allergic reactions, etc. In our opinion, for most people, Splenda has the fewest problems, if used in moderation, but there are definitely those people who cannot use it. Of the sugar alcohols, many notorious for unpleasant intestinal side effects, probably erythritol (sold as Z Sweet) and xylitol (sold under a variety of names and in bulk bags in many health food stores) have the fewest of these side effects, if used in moderation. The sweet herb, stevia, and even plain old saccharine don't have a lot of intestinal side effects, but do have a bitter aftertaste if you use even slightly too much.

The best advice is to find the artificial (or natural in the case of stevia) non-sugar sweetener you tolerate best and don't use much of it. Bit by bit taper the amount of sweetness you add to foods and let the natural sweetness shine through. Cordially...

Now, I'll broaden the educational value of the post a little, to add a short reference glossary of alternative sweeteners. Much of this information comes from an American Association of Cereal Chemists book we have in our library, called Sweeteners: Alternative by Amy L. Nelson (Eagen Press, St. Paul, Minnesota)

Acesulfame K: An accident of chemistry, discovered in 1967 by a Hoechst Company researcher in Germany, who noticed a sweet taste on his fingers, while reacting a couple of chemicals. (As you'll see from the entries that follow this is how more than a few artificial sweeteners got discovered. There seems to be a pattern among chemists to stick their fingers in their mouths, which, to me, a person with an undergrad combined biology/chemistry major, seems to violate every basic tenant of safe laboratory behavior I ever learned.) Acesulfame potassium, or AceK as we usually call it, is a synthetic, white, crystalline powder about 200 times sweeter than sucrose. Positives include having no demonstrated health risks so far (approved in the US in 1988) and good stability; it's not thought to decompose and is excreted unchanged from the GI tract. Drawbacks: really no serious ones, except that it is truly 'artificial' which, all by itself, is enough to turn some folks off. It's sold commercially under the name Sunette. We have no problem with its use in moderation, as all sweeteners should be used.

Aspartame: Sold under the brand name NutraSweet, the compound was also an accidental discovery in 1965 by a chemist at Searle & Company. (Another finger sucker, apparently.) It is a synthetic, white, crystalline powder, made of two amino acids (L-aspartic acid and L-phenylalanine) with about 160-220 times the sweetness of sucrose. Positives include a clean taste without metallic bitterness. Drawbacks include its notorious instability in non-acidic aqueous solutions or when heated, at which point it loses its sweetness and potentially becomes toxic. When the molecule disassociates (breaks apart) one potential decomposition compound is methanol or 'wood alcohol'--the stuff sometimes in moonshine that makes you go blind if you drink it. Just image what could be happening to those aspartame molecules inside all those cans of diet soda in the back of a delivery truck on a sweltering August day in Atlanta. We have personally witnessed a startling array of clinical ills anecdotally attributable to its use, ranging from severe and reproducible stomach cramping to sleeplessness to hives to emotional disturbance to memory loss. There's some evidence (again, anecdotal) that these potential ills might even be of greater risk to people on a low carb dietary structure. These concerns, in part, are what prompted our reversal of opinion about the sweetener's safety after writing Protein Power and why we no longer allow any little blue packets in our house. We do not recommend its use!

Cyclamate: Another accidental discovery, in 1937 by a graduate student at the University of Illinois. (This time a 'coffin nail' sucker who got his chemically contaminated fingers on his cigarette and noticed the smoke tasted sweet. Yeeaacch!) Cyclamate is a synthetic, white, crystalline powder about 30 times sweeter than sucrose. Drawbacks include: a bitter-tasting breakdown product and questionable health risk. Based on studies in the late 1960s that suggested the product might cause bladder cancer in rats, cyclamate was banned in the US in 1970 never to return. Subsequent studies in the 50 plus countries that didn't ban the product--and where it is still sold--showed no carcinogenic potential, but its petition for reinstatement in the US still languishes 25 years later.

Erythritol: A naturally occurring sugar alcohol (found in small quantities in mushrooms, pears, melons, grapes and wine) that is produced commercially by fermentation of table sugar (or other sugars) in a process somewhat akin to making yogurt. It's only about 70% as sweet as sugar but has only a fraction (about 0.2) of a calorie per gram, basically low enough to qualify it as 'zero calories'. Erythritol is a small molecule, rapidly absorbed by the small intestine, meaning little of it gets to the colon to cause the typical intestinal misery common to other sugar alcohols. On the good side, research has shown that more than 90% of what's absorbed is excreted unchanged in the urine within 24 hours. (That does beg the question of what happens to the other 10%, but let's not split hairs.) Positives: Most people feel it has a clean taste. As I do with xylitol, I perceive a slight cold, faintly metallic taste of the straight stuff that disappears to a large extent when it's added to a food or beverage.

Lo Han Guo: The extract of a Chinese berry, that, when purified into its individual compounds is 300 to 400 times sweeter than sucrose. Used in China for centuries (possibly millennia) it's a fairly recent entry into the natural alternative sweetener scene. (Proctor and Gamble patented a commercial extraction and purification process in 1995.) To read more about it, click here.

Saccharine (Sweet'n'Low): Discovered, again by accident, in 1878 at a Johns Hopkins University laboratory, saccharine is a synthetic, white, crystalline powder 300-600 times sweeter than sucrose. Drawbacks include: bitter aftertaste and questionable health risk. The substance had been shown in a 1977 Canadian study to cause bladder cancer in male rats fed an amount of saccharine equal on a human scale to that in 800 to 1000 cans of diet soda per day. Subsequent study on humans has failed to show a connection. According to Ms. Nelson's book, President Theodore Roosevelt, who championed the cause of keeping saccharine available to the American consumer, is said to have remarked:

"Anyone who says saccharin is injurious to health is an idiot!"--Teddy Roosevelt ,1906

Sorbitol, Mannitol, and Maltitol: All are sugar alcohols produced by the fermentation of corn, wheat, or potato starch into either a crystalline powder or a syrup. Depending on how the starch is broken down (by which enzymatic reaction and for how long) the same starch can yield any of these sugar alcohols. Glucose converts to sorbitol, mannose to mannitol, and maltose to maltitol. None are as sweet as sugar, though maltitol comes closest at 90%. Positives: they have fewer calories than sugar (about 1.5 to 2.5 per gram versus the 4 per gram in sugar). Drawbacks: All these sugar alcohols cause the notorious intestinal side effects common to the group--intestinal rumbling, gas, bloating, and often diarrhea--if consumed in more than small amounts, which limits their usefulness. Although some food purveyors will completely subtract all grams of any sugar alcohol they use in a product from the carb total, that's probably not entirely kosher, since some portion of the substance does get absorbed (although there's no good data on how much of which one to my knowledge) and therefore has to at least count as calories in. Although it's not double-blind, placebo controlled research data, it's long been our custom to count sugar alcohols a contributing about a third of a gram of carb per gram of sugar alcohol (or 3 grams for every 10) which serves to curb intake somewhat in people watching their carbs.

Stevia: First extracted in the early 1900s from the leaves of a South American plant, Stevia rebaudiniana, but used as an herb for centuries before that to sweeten bitter medicines. The leaves are about 30 times sweeter than sucrose and the purified extract (the stuff sold in little green packets in stores nowadays) is about 200 times sweeter. Positives include its natural origins and purported safety demonstrated by its lengthy use in folk medicine. Drawbacks include its bitter afterbite, which make it difficult to cook with, since just enough to make a dish properly sweet is a molecule away from the too much that makes it bitter. A good Stevia cookbook is a worthwhile purchase for anyone wanting to use this product to sweeten. Stevia extract has not received GRAS (Generally Recognized As Safe) status from the FDA (for who knows what reasons, but cherchez l'argent if you ask me) and, therefore, can only be sold as a dietary supplement, not a sweetener. Go figger.

Sucralose (Splenda): One of the few artificial sweeteners actually developed on purpose (by researchers at Queen Elizabeth College in London) sucralose is a synthetic compound made directly from the sugar molecule by selectively replacing three hydroxyl (-OH) groups with chlorine (-Cl) molecules to produce a substance about 400 to 800 times sweeter than the molecule it came from, sucrose. Positives include its clean taste, stability both in solutions across a wide range of pH values and at high temperatures. Additionally, it is minimally metabolized, being mostly excreted in the stool, unchanged--ie with all its added chlorine molecules still bound in their positions, not wandering around in the body somewhere as some alarmists would have you believe. To date, we have seen no credible evidence (either with our own eyes or in published controlled studies) to indict this sweetener as a health risk. As always, our minds will stay open and if such information becomes available and has merit, we will adjust our recommendations accordingly. For now, for us, sucralose in its little yellow packets or in bulk packages is fine, used in moderation as all sweeteners should be.

Tagatose: Derived from the milk sugar, lactose, this sweetener is slightly less sweet than sucrose (about 92% so). Positives include having only 1.5 calories per gram versus 4 for table sugar and honey (so although not no calorie, it's low calorie), not rotting your teeth, and exerting a pre-biotic effect in the gut by stimulating the cells of the colon to crank up their production of butyrate (a short chain fatty acid) that helps nourish both the colonocytes and the friendly bacteria there. Drawbacks: Makers suggest that it is metabolized in a manner similar to fructose (which might not be a good thing) but is only partially absorbed. About 15 to 20% is absorbed and the balance flows on downstream to cause all the same intestinal effects as other partially absorbable carbohydrates--namely, gas, bloating, and diarrhea--if used to excess. Marketed in the US in a product called Shugr.

Xylitol: A sugar alcohol, derived from xylan (a complex sugar chain, sort of like cellulose, which is found in corncobs, straw, almond shells, and birch bark) which is then broken down into individual units of a simple sugar, called xylose, which is then hydrogenated to make xylitol. Positives are that it has a sweetness exactly equal to sugar (but only half the calories) and so measures exactly like sugar spoon for spoon, making for easy recipe conversion. Additionally, there are a pretty good number of research studies that point to its actually being of some health benefit for preventing cavities and ear infections in children. Drawbacks: from my own use, I noted typical intestinal side effects of sugar alcohols, such as gas, bloating, rumbling, and diarrhea, although some people aver less misery with it than with other sugar alcohols, except, perhaps, erythritol. Additionally, I am able to perceive a slight cold, faintly metallic quality to its taste, although other people describe it as a clean taste. Once only found in chewing gum, so in small amounts in the diet, it's now being manufactured in bulk and in individual single serving packets. If you tolerate using it, and many people do, it's probably among the least offensive of the sugar alcohols.

I should note that all the high-intensity sweeteners (those with sweetness hundreds of times greater than sucrose) require a bulking agent to be used. Most of what's in the little packets of any color is the bulking agent, most often maltodextrin. There is currently great debate about whether the maltodextrin forms used for this purpose are an absorbable carb or not. The half a gram or so attributed to packets of sucralose, stevia, or saccharine come from the maltodextrin and we've always counted them into the total carb count. If it turned out that, like fiber, they went unabsorbed entirely, that would be an added benefit. Time will tell.

So, there it is. A glossary of the compounds sweeter than sugar. If you choose to use...Caveat emptor!

Nowadays, a dinner host has to navigate a veritable labyrinth of food proclivities to try to please all comers. What ever happened to the rule my mother taught me as a child when presented with something I didn't especially like or had never seen before: Take a bite to be polite?

Actually, I'm the first to try to accommodate food preferences for guests I invite to my home for a meal, if I know in advance of their requirements. And usually, I ask ahead of time: Anything anybody can't or won't eat? Obviously the last thing I'd want to do is feed something to someone with a true allergy, unless of course I planned to keep my medical bag close by to pop them with a dose of subQ epinephrine when they took a bite and began to gasp for air.

We've entertained folks who couldn't or wouldn't eat everything from wheat (usually not a problem in our house), dairy, seafood, and beef to onions, certain dye colors, and red wine. We've entertained vegetarians. We aim to please.

Last night's menu started with an Asian flare: Thai Tomato Ginger Soup, then an Avocado Ahi Tower with Microgreens. We then moved to cattle country, with a Marinated Grilled Flank Steak served on a bed of Mashed Fauxtatoes with Roasted Asparagus garnished with strips of Roasted Red Pepper. Dessert was one of my favorites: Wine Poached Fragrant Pears with a Cabernet Reduction Sauce.

As the group assembled, we slurped on a big batch of Guiltless Margaritas and some Spicy Low Carb Tortilla crisps and Salsa Roja. (The South of the Border part of our culinary world tour.)

(The Fauxtato, Pear, Margarita, and Tortilla crisp recipes are available on our PBS tv show's website and appear in the show's companion cookbook, Low Carb CookwoRx Cookbook.)

After a suitable interval of convivial gabbing, Mike and I ladled up the soup and invited all the guests to the dining room to begin.

After one bite of the soup, one of the guests asked "Do I taste pepper in this soup?"

"Yes, you do," I replied. "There's a bit of fresh Serrano pepper in there."

His dining companion laid down her soup spoon.

"I can't eat peppers," said she. "They make my tongue swell and tingle."

Needless to say, I was horrified. Thankfully, she hadn't eaten any of the soup, so I didn't have to rush for the bag or call 911.

"I'm so sorry," I said, "can I get you something else?"

She graciously demurred and I assured her that there were no hot chile peppers in any of the coming courses.

We cleared the soup and brought in the Avocado Ahi Towers, which were absolutely beautiful, if I do say so myself, not to mention delicious. (The recipe for how to do it follows below.)

I had to leave in the middle of the fish course to tend to the grilling flank steak and when I returned to finish my ahi, I was pleased to see that every single bit of food was gone from every plate. That's always a gratifying sight for the cook

It wasn't until all the guests had departed and Mike and I were cleaning up afterward that he spilled the beans to me. The Pepper Lady apparently wasn't into sashimi, either, because while I was out of the room tending to the beef, she'd given her entire fish portion to her dinner table neighbor, who accepted it, happily, and consumed every bite.

Which explains why the Pepper Lady had asked for more of the cauliflower puree (Mashed Fauxtatoes). Poor thing was probably starving half to death.

The moral of this tale is this:

People with food allergies or strict requirements should ALWAYS notify their hosts in advance!

For those of you, who, like us, love ahi sashimi, here's the recipe:

Avocado Ahi Towers with Microgreens

Serves 4

Ingredients

For the dressing/marinade
Juice of a lime
1 tablespoon grated fresh ginger
1 inch Wasabi paste (or 1/4 teaspoon Wasabi powder)
2 Tablespoons Ponzu Sauce
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon paprika
1 pinch Celtic Sea Salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly grated black pepper
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

2 green onions, diced, both green and white parts
1 pound fresh sashimi grade ahi (tuna), diced into 1/2" cubes
1 ripe Haas avocado, diced into 1/2" cubes (doused with the lime juice)
Juice of 1/2 lime
2 cups fresh microgreens
1/4 cup pickled ginger*, if desired for edible garnish

1.) Prepare four 4-ounce ramekins or custard cups by lining each one with a square of plastic wrap. (You'll need about a 10" length for each cup, center the wrap over the middle of the cup, press it down all around and leave the edges lapping over the sides.)
2.) In a small bowl, whisk together all dressing ingredients, except the oil and set aside for 10 to 15 minutes to allow flavors to combine and salt to melt. Then whisk in the olive oil in a slow stream.
3.) Reserve about 2 tablespoons of the dressing/marinade for use in dressing the microgreens just before serving.
4.) Place the diced ahi and green onions in a bowl, pour on half the remaining dressing/marinade and toss to coat completely.
5.) Pour the remaining dressing over the cubed avocado and toss gently with your fingers to completely coat.
6.) Place one-quarter of the ahi into each ramekin, top with one-quarter of the avocado, and then bring the 'tails' of the plastic wrap up and over to cover. Press slightly down to make the layers firm.
7.) Stack the ramekins one atop the other (the weight helps to solidify the 'tower's' body) and refrigerate until ready to serve. (You can do this up to 3 or 4 hours in advance, but much longer and the avocado will begin to break down and get mushy.)
8.) When ready to serve, dress microgreens lightly with the reserved dressing/marinade. Gently tug on the ends of the plastic wrap to pull the 'towers' out of the ramekins, open the bottom of the wrap, and invert the tower on a chilled salad plate. Place one-quarter of the dressed microgreens beside the tower. Garnish with a few coins of pickled ginger, if desired.

*(Note: Pickled ginger is available in little plastic bags, usually in the Asian or International Foods aisles of most grocery stores.)

It was such a treat for me, as it would be for any singer or lover of music and song, to sing (or hear) Mozart's compositions performed in the city where he lived and composed them, and not only that, to be able to sing in St. Stephen's Cathedral, the church in his neighborhood, his church. Unforgettable.

We're touring and performing again this summer, going to Rome, Florence, Vicenza and then across the Alps into Bavaria. We've just learned that the choir will sing mass at St. Peter's in Rome on July 13 at 5 pm. What an incredible treat that will be to hear one's own voice (or in the case of Mike, the voice of your dearly beloved) echoing off Michelangelo's great dome!

Besides seeing lots of sights along the way, the chorus will also perform Haydn's Thereseinmasse and Morten Lauridsen's Lux Aeterna with the internationally acclaimed Nova Amadeus Orchestra in Rome and Florence and then we've been invited by the Uberburgermeister (that's mayor to you and me) of Ehingen, Germany, to perform that repertoire in the finale concert at the Ehingen Musiksommer Festival there.

And, as if that weren't enough, we're also performing a concert of short pieces by (mainly) American composers, a capella or with piano accompaniment, in several other venues.

The choir reserved a limited number of seats for non-singers and there are still a few of these available, if anyone wants to go along. The tour departs the US on July 10 from LA and returns to the US on July 23 from Frankfurt. The deadline is April 14, 2007 to reserve these seats. For more information about how to do that, write to info@sbchoral.org or visit the Choral Society's website.

Warning! This is not a Protein Power tour; the tour is only about music, not about diet. There will be no talks on diet or nutrition by anyone, us included, except perhaps to comment on how delicious this or that food we just ate was! This is Italy we're talking about, where the food is fabulous; Mike and I will be on vacation...both in the relaxation/we're-not-working sense and very likely in the culinary/nutritional/dietary sense as well. If you would like to come along, do so with the understanding that it will be purely in the spirit of camaraderie; while we won't mind casually answering a few general questions, please understand that we cannot and will not be able to advise anyone about medical or nutritional issues in this setting.

Huh?

But, there, indeed, beneath the sign was the classic stainless steel centrifuge in a glass enclosure that I recalled from my youth, filled with whirling pink fluff. And beside it, a stand full of the classic white paper cones bearing smallish portions of the stuff.

Bernod's Spun City, the company hawking the product, is based...where else? California, of course! Face it, would certified organic cotton candy even be thought of elsewhere?

They, like all the vendors at Expo West, were handing out samples and literature about their product.

Here's the 'one sheet' that I picked up:

When I stopped to pick up the sheet, the jolly salesmen handed me a sample cone. I demurred. They pressed. Just a tiny taste, said I. This is a tiny taste, said they, handing me the whole cone with about 2 cups of fluff on it. And I supposed compared to the 8 cups of fluff that comes on the real full-sized McCoy, it would qualify as just a tidbit. So I took it (and the literature about it) and strolled away, laughing and shaking my head.

I haven't eaten cotton candy in probably twenty-five years and as I tore off an inch or so of it and stuffed it in my mouth, instantly, the years fell away and it was as though I were wandering through the midway of the State Fair. I could almost hear the noises: the shrieks of the people riding the giant ferris wheel, the popping of balloons, the bells dinging from the shooting gallery, the barkers luring people into the side shows. Funny how tastes and smells can so strongly evoke memories.

One bite was all it took, however, to make me shudder and toss the remainder in the first trash can I spotted the next aisle over. That's not to say that it wasn't tasty; it was. But it was too sweet, overpoweringly, almost sickeningly sweet. And why wouldn't it be, considering it's nothing but pure spun sugar...albeit, pure organic sugar with no artificial color or flavor. Not to mention trans fat and cholesterol free, to boot!

Somehow the purity of its ingredients didn't help my reeling taste buds much, shocked as they were by such intensity of sweetness after so many years spent eschewing such concentrated fare. Ah, but there was a day, long years ago in my misbegotten youth, when I could have dispatched not just the sample, but the entire full-sized puff, such was my sweet tooth.

And at what a metabolic cost? I cringe to think.

As for 'almost guilt-free indulgence' nowadays, give me a chunk of high- quality extra dark chocolate, from Vosges Haut Chocolates or Fauchon. And a tipple of Poire William and a cup of good hot espresso.

That's a combination to make your taste buds stand up and cheer.

Back in the day, with both of us working long shifts in our clinics, getting a hot supper to the table every night required learning a few tricks. And packet cooking was one of them. The boys called them "Hobo Suppers" and I called them lifesavers.

Often, I would assemble the packets the night before, stick them in the refrigerator, and the next day call home to ask one of the boys (usually our middle son, Dan) to turn on the oven at the appropriate hour, let it pre-heat, and stick the packets in. That way the main course would be ready when Mike and I got home and all I would have to do it toss together a salad, slice up some fresh tomatoes, or, depending on whether there were veggies cooking in the packet, maybe saute some zucchini, green beans, or broccoli and voila...dinner was served. (Tip: If you choose to follow this method, let the packets warm up slightly by taking them out of the refrigerator while the oven is heating up.)

Packet dishes can be simple, as in our family's Hobo Pork Tenders or elevated and tres French, as in Salmon en papillote*, but the technique is the same: Take a piece of foil or parchment paper, put in some bite-sized portions of meat, fish, or fowl, add a few veggies, some source of oil, herbs, spices, and liquid, seal it all up, throw it in the oven, open, eat, and throw away the wrapper.
(* The recipe given here is pretty carb friendly, except for the cous cous, which I'd just omit, personally.)
In his article, Mr. Romanoff presented an Asian inspired version in his Stir-Fry Chicken packets, using slices of boneless, skinless chicken, green onions, bell peppers, canned baby corn, garlic, and snow peas, dressed with soy sauce, rice vinegar, Asian red chili sauce and toasted sesame oil.

Save the little ears of baby corn (which I cannot even lay my eyes on without thinking of Tom Hanks in Big) everything in his packet meal is pretty low carb friendly and I wouldn't miss the baby corn if I just left it out. If you wanted the yellow color, you could simply use one yellow bell pepper along with the red one. Sounds easy and yummy. I think I'll try it.

Meantime, here's the aforementioned family's long time favorite hobo special. See what you think.

Hobo Pork Tenders

Serves 4

Ingredients

4 teaspoons olive oil
1 clove garlic, finely minced
8-12 1/2-inch slices fresh natural pork tenderloin
8 Cremini mushrooms or white button mushrooms, sliced
4 ribs of celery, diced
8 tablespoons premium coconut milk
2 teaspoons fresh thyme leaves (or 1 teaspoon dried)
1/2 teaspoon onion powder
salt and pepper to taste
4 12"-14" pieces of aluminum foil or parchment paper

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Lay the 4 pieces of foil or parchment on the counter; lightly brush the surfaces with the olive oil and evenly divide the minced garlic among them.
2. Sprinkle both sides of the pork tenderloin slices with salt and pepper and lay 2 or 3 slices in the center of each piece of foil or paper. (Note: adding more than 2 or 3 tenderloin slices to one packet will overload it and crowd the meat. Bigger appetites should simply eat two packets.)
3. Top each portion with one-quarter of the mushroom slices and diced celery.
4. Spoon 2 tablespoons of coconut milk onto each portion, sprinkle on the onion powder, thyme leaves, and a bit more salt and pepper.
5. Bring the 4 corners of the foil together at the center and crimp (or fold) the edges tightly together to make a pyramid-shaped packet.
6. Place the packets on a baking sheet into a 400 degree oven and cook for 30 minutes.
7. Allow packets to cool for about 10 minutes, open carefully to avoid the steam that escapes, and serve.

Protein per serving = 19 grams (based on 3 slices of meat per packet)
Effective carb per serving = 2.8 grams

Easy, delicious, and no clean up to speak of. My kind of weeknight meal. If your life is hectic, probably your kind, too.

Enjoy!

Unlike their true lemony yellow cousins, Meyer lemons are a hybrid lemon-orange cross and their skins betray their heritage. In fact, it was the bright, almost sunburnt yellow-orange color of a big, beautiful bowl of them in the accompanying photo that first drew my eye to the article.

We're lucky that among our small cluster of fruit trees at our place in Santa Barbara stands a good-sized old Meyer lemon tree that works hard to keep us well supplied with tasty, mild Meyer lemons when we're there. Sometimes, it works harder than we can keep up with, thus my interest in recipes for what to do with an occasional excess of Meyer lemons.

Blending their juice with lime juice springs to mind, but a girl can only drink so many margaritas.

Fortunately, Ms. Culbertson came to my rescue. Of the two recipes included with her article in our paper, the first--a Meyer Lemon and Onion Relish--weighs in at just 2 grams of carb per 2 tablespoon serving. No real problem there for the low carb dieter. The second--a Meyer Lemon, Gorgonzola, and Arugula Pizza--requires minimal modification to render it low carb friendly.

And it sounds divine.

The way it's written, the nutritional breakdown provided claims a whopping 125 grams of carb in a serving (half a 10-inch pizza) which seems sort of implausible, when you consider what's in it, or rather on it: olive oil, a half cup of the Meyer Lemon and Onion Relish, Gorgonzola cheese, some pine nuts, fresh thyme leaves, and arugula leaves. I ran the ingredients through my handy-dandy nutritional calculator and discovered that the aforementioned toppings only contain 11.7 grams of effective carbohydrate in both servings--i.e., ringing up just south of 6 grams per person.

So where's the massive carb load? In the pizza crust, obviously, but since the toppings only add between 5 and 6 grams, to hit that 125 gram carb total claimed per serving that means there's got to be 120 grams of carb in the dough for each half of her 10-incher. If so, that's one thick crust she's topping.

No matter; it's simple enough to reduce the carb tab and keep all the flavors by either substituting a large low-carb flour tortilla for the crust (at a cost of around 5 grams a person) or for those who want something a little thicker to chew on, by putting the delicious toppings on a low-carb homemade waffle, for about the same cost.

Either way, as soon as we get back to our Meyer Lemon tree, I intend to make enough relish to keep me in Meyer Lemon, Gorgonzola, and Arugula pizzas for a good while.

Low-carb adapted, of course.

The performance was awesome in the true sense the word had before it got co-opted and devalued by teenspeak. If you've never seen a Cirque performance, and, like me, love to be amazed by the apparent effortlessness of acrobatic superhuman abilities, you owe it to yourself to see one.

The other half of our present was dinner before the show at The Grape, a venerable Dallas bistro.

From start to finish the food was quite good, but the service was so slow and monochronic that we were forced to make a mad dash across Dallas to make it to our seats at Corteo before they shut the doors, or rather the tent flaps, in our faces! The highlight of the meal, for me at any rate, wasn't the succulent meat or even the wine, both of which were delicious. It was the tomato soup. I would have gladly traded in my entree for another bowl of soup.

I've never met a tomato soup I didn't like; I'm a total sucker for it on a restaurant menu. But this one had an unusual flair, a little something in there to make your tastebuds sit up and wonder "Hmmm. What is that flavor? " I didn't ask, but my palate speculated that it was made with some coconut milk and a touch of fresh ginger and maybe a bit of something even a little hotter. Although fresh ginger's got a little heat of its own, the hotness said 'chile' to me, so maybe a little fresh serrano or a dash of Tabasco. Whatever was in it, it was divine. If I could have done so without making a spectacle of myself, I'd have licked the bowl.

So I came home to experiment and here's the (very tasty, if I do say so myself) result:

Thai Tomato-Ginger Soup

Serves 4

Ingredients

1 tablespoon olive oil
2 tablespoons minced fresh basil
½ Serrano pepper, minced
1 clove garlic, minced
1 teaspoon grated (peeled) fresh ginger
½ teaspoon coarse salt (preferable unrefined sea salt)
¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 can (14-ounce) premium coconut milk
1 can (15-ounce) tomato sauce
2 cups vegetable stock

1. In a large saucepan, heat olive oil gently over medium heat; sauté garlic, ginger, basil, Serrano pepper, salt and black pepper to wilt herbs and infuse oil with all flavors. Do not brown.
2. Add tomato sauce, coconut milk and whisk to combine thoroughly.
3. Stir in the vegetable stock, bring to a boil, and then simmer gently for 20 to 30 minutes.
4. Serve hot, garnished with a couple of fresh basil leaves.

Protein per serving: 4.3 grams
Effective carb per serving: 11.3 grams

Enjoy!

Back when we ran our general medical clinic (at the beginning of our careers in medicine for ten years or so) we developed the iron-clad immunity that most doctors do from exposure day after day to a large and varied, germ-bearing, patient population. Since leaving day-to-day practice six years ago and with our children long grown and gone, we haven't had that chronic every day exposure to infection and consequently our immunity has waned a bit, leaving us much more susceptible to viruses we haven't encountered in a good long while.

To wit: over Thanksgiving, while visiting in Dallas, we got one grandson's cold; over Christmas we got the other grandson's cold. This past week, our granddaughter, who was visiting us, came down with a cold and that sent us running for the supplement cabinet.

Our routine over the past ten or so years, when we felt we'd either been exposed to someone with a cold, flu or other contagion or felt like we were coming down with something of that nature, has been to begin a supplement regimen designed to provide our immune systems with the raw materials necessary to step up to the plate and knock out the invader. The regimen is not a cure; it's simply good nutritional support to help our own natural immunity.

The regimen includes, among other things, extra vitamin C, extra zinc, some lactoferrin and/or lactalbumin to sequester iron and keep it away from the invading hordes, and various other immune supportive nutrients, such as colostrum (a source of immune globulins found in the first milk produced by mammals) and olive leaf and 1,3 beta-glucan (which are potent natural antimicrobial agents). It's got a lot of vitamin C and a whopping slug of zinc in it, which has been clinically shown to reduce the duration of a cold, but which if taken in this amount chronically could cause deficiencies of other important minerals, such as copper. So we don't take it every day, but at the first sign of potential trouble, we take the combo 2 or 3 times a day for 5 days or so.

Just a glance at that list and you immediately realize one thing: you have to dole out capsules from about a half dozen different bottles, which is a pain in the neck at home and nigh onto impossible on the road.

But a few months back, when we began reformulating our Drs. Eades' Daily Regimen vitamin/mineral supplement, we got a bright idea.

Why not ask the manufacturer to put all these disparate immune support supplements into the same kind of cello-pak we had used for the Regimen for the sake of economy and convenience?

And so we did.

The product, called Cold Pack, is the second in our line of Drs. Eades' Signature Nutrients and it's now available on our website...and just in time for our grandkids' next visit!

The book, Twinkie, Deconstructed by Steve Ettlinger avows right in the subtitle his stated mission to track to their origins each of the 39 ingredients (yes, 39) in a Twinkie.

The article itself is interesting, but the book promises to be much like Michael Pollan's Omnivore's Dilemma, an eye-opening, jaw-dropping expose of what's in this junk food icon and why. Just the bits of revelation in the Amazon 'jacket' copy make me shudder at the thought of ever having put a Twinkie into my children's lunch sacks, albeit done, as it was, before I had my brain transplant twenty plus years ago.

We've pre-ordered our copy and I can't wait to dig into it.

As for digging into the star of the show, however, if it's cream filled sponge cake I'm after, for my money, I'd rather stray on the real thing. Give me a piece of real homemade sponge cake stuffed with real cream filling--eggs, flour, sugar, vanilla, butter and cream--not some 39 component chemical chimera designed to taste like it was made of those real things, but to last, like a vampire, for all eternity. The carb cost would be about the same, but the thought not quite so horrific...or industrial.

The process took a bit longer than we expected, because we engaged the services of a new manufacturer to help us reformulate the product. The result is a new and improved version of our cello-pak vitamin/mineral supplement in a brand new (and, we're happy to report, substantially smaller) package. The new formulation also allowed us to combine a couple of nutrients and reduce 5 pills to 4, which makes for easier swallowing.

Ingredient costs have risen since we made the last formulation and consequently the product cost is substantially higher, but we wouldn't settle for less than the optimal quality ingredients. Thus we had to raise the price of the product slightly, but we made every effort to keep it as affordable as we could.

Same quality, same convenience, new look. The new and improved Daily Regimen will be the first in a series of custom designed products under the all new Drs. Eades' Signature Nutrients brand. We like the new look and hope you will, too.

It seems that in her quest to be an astute and informed diner, who occasionally eats a bunless McDonald's burger when pressed for time, Nancy discovered something disturbing on the McDonald's official nutritional information website: the presence of 5 grams of carbohydrate per serving in what are billed as burger patties made of 100% beef, no additives, no fillers, no extenders.

Curious, eh?

She wrote to us to see if we could help her unravel their source.

We were as mystified as she and quite honestly couldn't fathom where 5 grams of carbohydrate would be coming from, if Mickey Ds is on the up and up with the patties' being made of 100% beef. We speculated a couple of possibilities:

1) the nutritoinal info posted by McDonalds is incorrect. Surely a possibility.

2) the 100% beef, no extenders, no fillers burger might have some sort of not-technically-additive, not-technically-filler, not-techincally-extender 'flavor enhancing substance' containing some carb of some sort, designed to make all the patties taste uniform throughout the world. Wouldn't be the first time Mickey Ds adopted the Unified Flavor Theory of food preparation.

3) Maybe lot feeding cattle with corn, just as carb-loading humans with pasta, packs so much glycogen into the beef muscle that it raises the amount of 'muscle starch' to a level of 5 grams per quarter pound of meat.

Mike feels this possibility is a stretch, citing the fact that the liver, clearly the most intensive storer of glycogen in the body (true for ours and for a cow's, I presume) contains only 400 grams of glycogen in the whole organ, so how could a mere quarter pound of muscle contain 5 grams? So, I put a pencil to it. If a typical human liver weighs 2 kg and it contains 400 g of glycogen if fully replete, that represents 20% of its weight as glycogen. Therefore, a quarter pound of liver (weighing about 113.4 grams) would contain 22.7 grams of glycogen. Doesn't seem all that much of a stretch to me, that a quarter pound of carb-loaded muscle might contain a quarter of that amount, but maybe we could get a veternary biochemist to weigh in on the subject.

Here's Nancy's letter of January 4, 2007 to McDonald's:

"For the past 3 years, I have adhered to a pretty strictly low-carb, high-protein diet, free of high fructose corn syrup, starches, and sugars of all kinds. Unlike many people, I do not fear saturated fat, and I don't hold McDonalds accountable for American obesity and poor health. I think that one can eat healthily at McDonalds if one chooses carefully. When I eat at McDonalds (4-5 times per month), I choose burgers or breakfast sandwiches and remove the buns/breads.

My question: I just looked at the nutrition info on your website and was startled to see that the beef patty on a Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese (my favorite selection) is listed as having five grams of carbohydrate. Why? The ingredient list for the beef patty claims 100% beef, no additives, fillers, or extenders. Whence, then, come the carbs? 100% beef should contain only protein and fat, with no carb, should it not?

Please inform me of the source of the carbohydrate in the beef patty. Thank you."

Here's the response from McDonald's on January 5, 2007 along with my [parenthetical] comments:

"Hello Nancy: Thank you for taking the time to contact McDonald's. We are always glad to hear from our valued customers. The website currently shows that the Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese sandwich's beef patties have 5 grams [my bold] of carbohydrates. With the recent reanalysis, a different methodology was used to calculate the total fat content with a small decrease in total fat. [huh?] However, many foods also show a slight increase in the amount of carbohydrates.[Is this because they just subtract what's not protein and fat and call it carb or something?] This might seem confusing for consumers, [and, if Mike and I are any indication, for physicians and nutritional experts, too] but we can assure you that there are no fillers added to the beef patties. The carbohydrates in the beef patty are more likely from indigestible fiber-like components in the meat [Puleese! What exactly is an indigestible fiber-like component and how could there be any in a 100% beef patty. I mean 100% is 100%, it doesn't leave any room for any percentage of indigestible fiber-like components] that get counted in the carbohydrates' category. Again, thank you for contacting McDonald's. We hope to have the opportunity of serving you again soon under the Golden Arches. Tina McDonald's Customer Response Center"

Interestingly, I just went to the McDonald's nutritional site to check the breakdown myself and found this page for the Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese. Oddly, the value for carbs in the 100% beef patties is now listed as 1, not 5.

Curiouser and curiouser.

As mysteriously as they appeared, so they seem to have disappeared. And we must assume they were there, since Tina of the McDonald's Customer Response Center verified to Nancy that indeed the site showed 5 grams and then went on to provide the surreal explanation.

So the new question for all you mystery buffs and conspiracy theorists is: where did those mystery carbs come from and where did they go?

My advice, as imparted to Nancy, is to eat grassfed natural beef (which I realize isn't always practical or possible) and then you don't have to rely on Mickey's math.