Photo from NY Times Wednesday April 15, 2009

We’d already heard about its arrival at the Natural Foods Expo West show last March in Anaheim and had even sampled some of it. While I’m glad to see a natural alternative in the low-and-no calorie sweetener department, I’m personally not crazy about this one. Truvia is a blend of rebiana, an extract of stevia, and erythritol, a sugar alcohol. Thought there may be many good things about erythritol, to my taste buds it has a cold, metallic edge that I don’t enjoy. Others who don’t catch that taste twinge would perhaps feel differently about it and will love Truvia’s green packets in the sweetener caddy beside the blue, pink, and yellow ones.

Of course, by convention, for many many years, consumers have associated artificial sweeteners with a particular packet color: blue for aspartame products, pink for saccharine products, yellow for sucralose products, and green for stevia products. And it is related to this topic that I found the real eye-popper in this piece…the big news in my humble opinion…buried in the continuation of the article on page D5:

Consumers are loyal to their favorite sweetener, and to the color of its packet. Now manufacturers like Mr. Petray [CEO of Nutrasweet, which makes aspartame] are mixing up the color code, putting new sweetener combinations in the familiar pink, blue, and yellow.

This is news! And, in my mind, underhanded and sneaky and ethically fuzzy. The article goes on…

His challenge to Splenda combines aspartame and a touch of sugar in a yellow packet called NutraSweet Cane…Mr. Petray’s entry in the stevia wars is called Natural NutraSweet, which comes in a green packet, of course. And the company created a new saccharin-free pink packet, too. [The article didn't say what was in that pink packet, however, but since it's coming from NutraSweet we can be sure that one of the ingredients will be aspartame.]

The yellow packet, especially, is worrisome to me, since most low-carbers avoid aspartame because of some reports that suggest it might be particularly detrimental to the brains of people on a low carb eating plan. And this yellow imposter will have not only aspartame but sugar…real honest to Pete sugar! In the very yellow, pink, and green packets that many of us have come to trust do NOT contain aspartame, there will now be aspartame.

(For a longer discussion on the various sweeteners, see a previous blog post of mine here.)

Once these imposter packets make their way into the commercial market, consumers or diners will no longer be able to rely on colors alone to select their sweetener. We’ll all have to be careful label-readers to keep from being duped.

Say what?! Inhalable chocolate?

Truth is indeed stranger than fiction.

According to Mr. Schmadeke, David Edwards, the gentleman who invented inhalable insulin for diabetics, has now given us…well…a snort of chocolate. And he goes on to quote Mr. Edwards,

We believe really strongly that there’s a whole new way of eating–by aerosol.

Hmmmm. Like I need a ‘whole new way of eating’ chocolate. I’ve been known to ‘inhale’ chocolate in my time–I have admittedly downed a fair number more pieces of Mike’s mother’s fabulous fudge at Christmas in a short span of time than would be considered prudent–but never anything quite like this!

The chocolate particles (80 to 300 microns in size and about 1 calorie’s worth per puff) coat the inside of the mouth, so says the article. I wonder if you can actually taste it? I wonder if there’s any pleasure whatsoever to be derived from it? Any nutritive value from the catechins present in so minuscule an amount?

And if not, what’s the point?

We can all find out at the end of this month, according to the article, when Le Whif goes live on line, vending chocolate whiffs at about 50-cents a pop.

Ah, I can see it now… I’ll just have a doppio espresso and two of those chocolate whiffs, please.

Can inhalable buttered popcorn at the movies be far behind?

An article appeared yesterday in the London Free Press about a new study (abstract free, full text not) purporting to show that female brains don’t as easily turn off the appetite signal when confronted with a favorite food (read: can’t as easily forget that there is a box of donuts in the breakroom) than those of their brethren.

Researchers, studying the mysteries of voluntary hunger suppression, were surprised when PET scans of fasted subjects–23 men and 23 women–presented with their favorite foods, showed marked gender differences. The ‘feeling’ or ‘emotional’ parts of the brains of all participants lit up like a Christmas tree on sight of the favored food. The subjects had been taught ‘cognitive inhibition’ suppression techniques to consciously quiet hunger that they were asked to employ during the test.

When men employed the techniques, they reported that their hunger did abate and the PET scan showed dimming of the activity in those previously-lit-up parts of the brain.

Not so with the ladies.

“There is something going on in the female…The signal is so much different…Even though the women said[my italics] they were less hungry when trying to inhibit their response to the food, their brains were still firing away in the regions that control the drive to eat,” Wang said.

But what does it all mean? Who knows (and the authors didn’t speculate). But I can…

Is it that the female brain is less capable of focusing on the ‘congnitive inhibition’ or are women’s brains, once focused, more complex machines with greater RAM and therefore less easily distracted? Does the difference spring from the theory of the polychronic female brain, versus the monochronic male one? The difference that, some would say, allows a mother to juggle many things at once: cook dinner, talk to her mother on the phone, help Joannie with her homework, keep an eye on 2-year-old Billy and the new puppy, change the baby’s diaper, and do a load of laundry almost simultaneously?

Maybe that polychronicity allowed the female subjects to keep the image of the warm donut in the backs of their minds, even while willing themselves with another part of the brain to backburner it…for now…and report less hunger. While the male brain, able perhaps to focus on only one thing at a time could either think about the donut or not. Maybe the male brain operates on a binary system that means if they choose to think about something else…poof!…thoughts of the donut vanish. Whereas the female brain may operate more like an iMac, capable of having dozens of windows up on the screen, with one application overlaying the other, all of them there and quickly accessible, but running silently behind the one in the forefront.

All pure speculation, of course, and just a few of a score of other plausible explanations for the difference. The study doesn’t address any of the whys, but it provides such intriguing fodder for future studies, they will surely follow in due course.

Thus, although I completely agree with my husband about Dr. Glasser’s theory in general, it may prove to be the case that we of the fairer sex are wired to have more trouble than our brothers at sublimating the desire for the warm donuts through simple distraction. That’s not to say we shouldn’t try to do so, just that it may be another of those inequalities/differences in the sexes that makes it a slightly tougher row to hoe…or in this case, donut to ignore…for us.

However, the author of the piece, Scott Steepleton, made a monumental error in fact checking. We’ve already written a letter to the editor pointing up the mistake; we’ll let you know if they print it.

Per Mr. Steepleton:

A small amount of trans fat is found naturally, primarily in some animal-based foods, according to the Food and Drug Administration. [No quibble so far.] But legislation such as Mr. Mensoza’s AB 97 [the bill banning the use of trans fats] is aimed at the manufactured variety, produced when hydrogen is added to, say, vegetable oil. That includes lard.”

Say what??

Since when did lard become a ‘manufactured’ fat, hydrogenated in a factory by adding hydrogen to vegetable oil? What utter nonsense.

Real lard is a naturally-hydrogenated, solid fat that requires no tampering in the factory to add anything to it. Lard is rendered pork fat. Most of its carbon bonding sites are happily filled with a full complement of hydrogens in their natural and normal cis position just as it comes from the hog.

Mr. Steepleton must be confusing lard with shortening or perhaps confusing real natural lard with the lard found in tubs on grocery shelves (as opposed to the refrigerator case, where it should be) that has had some manufacturer’s tinkering to make it even more shelf stable.

Unlike the natural solid fat, lard, vegetable shortening is a liquid oil until manufacturers tamper with its structure by heating it up under pressure and bubbling hydrogen gas into it (with a catalyst to make it all work faster) and force-feeding the carbon double bonds some hydrogen atoms that often latch on in a crossways or trans configuration.

A little bit of hydrogen added in the trans configuration increases shelf life of the oil and allows liquid vegetable oils and corn oil not to go rancid in large, clear containers exposed to light and heat on the store shelves. (This would also be the case, though to a much lesser degree, for the small amount of hydrogenation possible for shelf-stable lard.)

A lot of hydrogen added in the trans configuration solidifies the liquid oil, creating stick margarine or solid vegetable shortening, such as Crisco. These Franken Fats were created to replace the naturally solid fats, butter and lard, not for health reasons, but because the real McCoys were rationed in WWII.

I grew up in a household that saved every drop of bacon grease (or drippins, as we called it) and used it liberally in cooking to season greens, fry chicken or eggs, lighten pie crusts and more. To this day, there is always a coffee can containing bacon drippins in my refrigerator. Granted, it’s now an Illy espresso can, not a Maxwell House…Good to the last drop! can, proving only that though times change, they don’t change all that much.

In the years since WWII, which is all of my life so far, the Franken Fats have largely taken over the prepackaged commercial food market, since they have some attractive food manufacturing properties, the most important of which (I suspect) being that they are a whole lot cheaper.

Both lard and butter have been vilified (undeservedly) by the all-saturated-fats-are-evil crowd, but where butter has been labeled by them as dangerous for your health, lard has been cast as a mass-murdering serial killer. It’s utter, knee-jerk, nonsense. And nonsense, by the way, that led these bands of crusading think-they-know-it-all do-gooders (read: Committee for Science in the Public Interest and the PETA-backed Physicians for Responsible Medicine) to pressure the powers that be to remove beef tallow, lard, and butter from commercially prepared foods and replace them with ‘healthy’ partially hydrogenated vegetable fats in the first place. Yes, they all previously lobbied to switch to these self-same fats–these trans fats–that they’re now crusading to eliminate from commercial kitchens.

Time has proven that they were misguided then, but it has left them between the proverbial rock and the hard place. They can’t allow people to eat ‘dangerous artery clogging saturated fats’ and they can’t recommend their erstwhile darlings (now their demons) the partially-hydrogenated vegetable fats. About all that’s left to them is olive oil, onto which they’ve jumped with both feet as the savior of human hearts and health.

Let’s look for a moment beyond the inflammatory rhetoric and knee-jerk Kool-aid slurping surety that lard is bad and that all saturated fats, such as those found in lard, are bad and attempt to tease out the truth. What is lard?

Lard, contrary to its besmirched reputation, is a healthful fat with sterling culinary properties for high temperature cooking and baking and a darned good fatty acid profile.

(First a brief digression about nomenclature in fats. If you’re up on it, skip on down.)

Fats are made of fatty acids. Fatty acids are the carbon-hydrogen chains that latch on in groups of three to a glycerol backbone to make a triglyceride molecule, which are the basic molecules of which all fats are made. The length of the carbon chains and where, if any, double bonds (ie, missing hydrogen molecules) occur differentiate the fatty acids one from another. The more double bonds, the more unsaturated. One double bond gives you a monounsaturate, many double bonds gives you a polyunsaturate, no double bonds gives you a saturated fatty acid.

The main saturated fatty acids in edible oils are (from shortest to longest chains): capric, lauric, myristic, palmitic, and stearic acids. The main monounsaturate is oleic acid. The main polyunsaturates are linoleic and alpha-linolenic, with the difference between those two 18-carbon fatty acids simply where the first double bond occurs, which is at the number 6 carbon in linoleic (making it an omega-6 fat) and at the number 3 carbon in alpha-linolenic (making it an omega-3 fat). And of course there are the all-important highly unsaturated marine oils, EPA and DHA, which are 20 carbon chains in the omega-3 family as well.

Now let’s compare lard to that darling of the disciples of the Mediterranean diet: olive oil. Olive oil contains 71% oleic acid, that heart-healthy, monounsaturated fat that we’re supposed to get more of. Lard contains 44% oleic acid, which is more than sesame oil (41%) and double or nearly so the amount in corn oil (28%) walnut oil (28%), and flaxseed oil (21%), more than double the amount in cottonseed oil (19%) and sunflower oil (19%), and nearly triple that in grapeseed oil (15%) and safflower oil (13%). The oleic acid content of lard also exceeds that in beef tallow (43%), butterfat (29%), and human butterfat (ie the fat of breast milk at 35%).

Lard also contains a fair amount (14%) of the 18-carbon saturated fat, stearic acid, which has been shown in clinical testing to lower cholesterol. Important, of course, only if that’s actually a valid cardiovascular health parameter when it’s all said and done, which is looking more and more doubtful with each passing day. Certainly there are many who still think it so. Consumers spend an annual $14.8 billion on statins in an effort to lower cholesterol–a sad commentary, when stearic acid is a whole lot cheaper and safer.

Like olive oil, lard contains 10% of the omega-6 fatty acid linoleic acid, again, roughly the same as human butterfat (breast milk) at 9%.

Lard contains 2% myristic acid, a 14-carbon saturated fat that has been shown to have important immune enhancing properties. Human butterfat contains about 8% myristic acid, as a booster for the newly minted and incompetent infant immune system. Other animal milk fats also contain a fair amount. By comparison with the exception of cottonseed oil (1%) and the tropical oils, coconut oil (18%) and and palm kernal oil (16%) vegetable oils have zero.

The big bugaboo with lard, then, must come from the last component of its composition: palmitic acid a 16-carbon saturated fatty acid that is believed by some to be Beelzebub, Barlow, and the Bermuda Triangle all rolled into one. Lard contains 26% of the stuff and olive oil only 13%. Aha! There it is. The smoking gun! That must be what makes lard so bad and olive oil so good!

There’s one fly in that explanatory ointment, however: human butterfat contains 25% palmitic acid, just a silly 1% different from lard. Are we to believe that nature would have designed a food for human infants that contained too much?

So let’s now compare lard’s basic fatty acid composition to the real gold standard, the butterfat of human breast milk and see how it stacks up.

Saturated Monounsaturated Polyunsaturated
Breast Milk 48% 35% 10%
Lard 42% 44% 10%

Note: the numbers don’t add up to 100% because of rounding and other small constituents not listed in the fats and oils of common edible foods table. That said, however, even if all the unreported 7% of the composition of breast milk were monounsaturated fat and all unreported 4% of the lard were saturated fat, the composition of lard would still be less saturated and contain more monounsaturates than human breast milk.

Now tell me again why lard is bad for our health.

If you want to render your own lard, there’s a good piece about it on the Homesick Texan blog.

If you don’t want to go to the trouble to render your own, but love to use lard for panfrying and baking, I sussed out an organic source for lard online.

Springing for an organic source in lard (whether you buy naturally raised pork fat to render yourself or let someone else do the work for you) is important, since most pesticides, chemicals, fertilizers, hormones, antibiotics, and other environmental pollutants will be soluble (and therefore stored) in the fat of the animal. Where edible fat is concerned, organic is definitely worth the expense.

So fear not and don’t be swayed by the misguided and misinformed. Eat more (natural, organic) lard!

Just as feed lots breed disease in livestock, so aquatic feed lots (aquapens) breed disease in sea stock. One of the unforeseen consequences to fish farming in the open sea is that parasites that infest the feedlot can escape to infest the wild populations, further decimating them.

The collapse of the Pacific salmon runs this year and the ban on taking salmon from Pacific waters has left only the Alaskan runs to support the appetites of Americas salmon-hungry population. Consequently, fresh wild Alaskan salmon will be as pricey as caviar this summer.

The collapse of the wild salmon runs is a real problem that’s got to be addressed sooner rather than later or before long there won’t be wild salmon available at any price. So I join with Taras Grescoe in limiting my consumption of wild salmon in the hope that with a little TLC and tincture of time the wild runs in the Pacific can recover.

Halibut, anyone?

On one excursion, we helicoptered across the vast expanse of glacial ice to walk on the glaciers (as we sipped champagne and nibbled fudge–my kind of trek for sure). It was an unforgettable experience to stand on that frozen sheet and listen to the noisy snapping and popping the glacier makes and to look into the chasms with their unearthly aquamarine light and hear the roar of water beneath them.

On another excursion, we paddled sea kayaks up into the quite estuaries to where the salmon spawn. At the mouths of the streams, the fish were literally roiling the water with activity, leaping from the surface high enough that one could have easily landed inside the kayaks. Another truly amazing experience.

So it was with dismay that I read the article by Terence Chea in last weeks paper: Salmon Collapse may prompt fishing ban.

The situation is dire, as Mr. Chea writes:

…only about 90,000 adult chinook [king salmon] returned to the Central Valley last fall — the second lowest number on record and well below the number needed to maintain a healthy fishery. That number is projected to fall to a record low of 58,000 this year. By contrast, 775,000 adults were counted in the Sacramento River and its tributaries as recently as 2002.

“This stock got off-the-charts bad very suddenly,” said Donald McIsaac, the council’s executive director. “It’s a very, very severe situation.”

For those of us who love to eat salmon it’s a situation we should watch. For those who make their living fishing for salmon, it’s a nightmare. We can expect that salmon prices will rise, but it will be worth the effort if it means recovery of this natural resource.

Our New Year’s Eve dinners usually begin at about 8 pm and we try to time it so that we’ve just finished the dessert course in time to raise a glass of bubbly at midnight and gather ’round the piano for a rousing chorus of Auld Lang Syne. This year the timing worked out just about perfectly.

Here’s the menu…

Kir Royale
Seared Foie Gras with Sherry Reduction
Roasted Red Pepper and Tomato Soup with Artichoke Tapenade
Smoked Salmon, Caviar, and Creme Fraiche Blinis*
Roasted Cornish Hen with Forbidden Rice, Dried Cherry, and Pecan stuffing
Roasted Butternut Squash Puree
Broccolini and Red Pepper Bundles
Fresh Mixed Greens with Rosemary Balsamic Vinaigrette
Epoisses with Currant Walnut Bread
Creme Brulee*
Espresso/Americano
Laurent Perrier Demi-Sec to toast

* denotes a low carb adapted version

We began the evening as the guests assembled with champagne cocktails, Kir Royale, courtesy of a lovely Veuve Cliquot brought by one of our guest couples, and nibbled on a selection of olives–some oil cured blacks, those giant Spanish garlicky ones that I love, and some small Kalamatas–along with nuts and Cornichons. And then the business of eating got serious.

I’d planned seared foie gras with a sherry reduction as the first course. It is my hands down favorite decadent, savory taste treat, but I recognize and respect that others either can’t or won’t enjoy it. For the three among the eight of us who felt they couldn’t enjoy the dish, we sauteed some big beautiful portabello caps in butter and olive oil and dressed them with the same sherry reduction. Everyone seemed pleased.

Though some people–Ornish or Pritikin disciples, for instance–would avoid foie gras on the grounds that it is too high in fat, most objections to it derive from the belief that the birds (geese or ducks) from which it comes suffer as they are brutally force fed the grain that fattens their livers and renders them such a delectable treat for us carnivorous types. I have to say that the notion did bother me, although never quite enough to put me off having some from time to time. Fortunately (for me, at any rate) my worst fears about the process were laid to rest by a piece of investigative journalismby Lawrence Downes that Mike stumbled upon (and blogged about) a couple of years ago.

Mr. Downes, himself unwilling to believe anything but his own eye-witness account, visited the Hudson Valley Foie Gras Farm (where my foie originated) and found to his surprise no sign of brutality in the quick (and seemingly well-accepted by the ducks) feedings of corn. Bird by bird, they waddled up and happily opened their bills for their corn supplement. Quite a departure, I thought, from the brutal horror show that the animal rights activists promulgate. Had Mr. Downes found brutality were the fact, not an exception, then I might feel differently, but at least at Hudson Valley, that doesn’t seem to be the case.

But is making ducks obese humane, even if they enjoy it?

Certainly developing a fatty liver isn’t any better for the ducks in the long run than it is for people, but with one clear difference. For ducks, there isn’t a long run. Unlike ducks, people live long lives, potentially get sicker, may become less productive, and surely end up leading more costly lives in terms of the medical burden to themselves, their insurer, or society as the metabolic consequences of fatty liver, insulin resistance, diabetes, and obesity take their toll. For domestic fowl, raised for food, their end is going to be pretty much the same, regardless of the condition of their livers when the ax falls. If they enjoy a bit of corn-gluttony along the way, don’t seem to object to it, aren’t discomfited overmuch by it, then where’s the harm? For me, it’s a treasure and I can say without hesitation that no duck ever guzzled corn in vain whose liver wound up, seared, on my plate.

But enough of the pros and cons of foie gras. We had it, Mike posted a blog and photos on it, and, I must say, it was utterly delicious.

If you find yourself in the ‘love foie gras’ camp, you’re in luck; the preparation is a breeze, really; it’s the saving up to buy it that’s the hard part. One pound-and-a-half grade A liver can set you back about a C-note, but for a special occasion…priceless.

Here’s all there is to it: When the liver arrives, via ice packed overnight container, you simply soak it overnight in iced salt water in a covered bowl or (as I did) big zip closure bag. Then before searing, you flip it over, spread the lobes just enough to work the central cluster of veins free if you can, slice it into medallions, sprinkle them with just a hint of salt and pepper and lovingly slip them into a hot heavy skillet. No need to worry about oiling the pan; in just a minute they begin to render their fat and by two minutes or so, they’ll have developed a mouth-watering carmelization on the first side and be ready to flip. You’ll want to have your serving plates warm and at the ready, so that you can remove the seared medallions for a quick blot on a paper towel and transfer them, hot and luscious, to the warm plates, drizzle on the sherry reduction, and send them to the hungry dinner guests immediately.

The sherry reduction I adapted came from Nancy Oakes’ gorgeous Boulevard cookbook (from the restaurant of the same name in San Francisco). It’s quite simple, as reductions usually are, involving just three ingredients and a little time. I used 1/2 cup of really good reserve sherry vinegar and 1 1/2 cups of Oloroso sherry, plus 2 tablespoons of the 50/50 mixture of Brown Sugar/Splenda. Bring to just under a boil, then simmer until reduced to 1/4 cup total (so from 2 cups to 1/4 cup) at which point it’s lightly syrupy. Just a slosh of that over the hot foie gras and you’re good to go.

Heavenly!

And thus, for carnivore and herbivore alike, it was on to the soup course, about which I’ll blog next, complete with recipe. The meal, what with all its music, laughter, and good conversation, lasted more than 5 hours, but lest this blog post do likewise, I think I’ll break it up and over the next week or so, I will go course by course, through what we had, how I prepared it, and where photos exist, I’ll include them.

Stay tuned!

The snow already capping the Sierra peaks I can see across Lake Tahoe from our house turns my thoughts to crackling evening fires and comfort foods. With the chill in the air and Thanksgiving just around the corner, I decided now would be a good time to search out some new and different twists on the savory flavors of fall.

One of my favorite autumn and winter vegetables is butternut squash. I love it as a thick soup; I love it as a savory puree with roast pork tenderloin; I love it as a substitute for yams in holiday casseroles; and I’m always on the lookout for tasty new ways to prepare it.

On a recent trip, I came across just such a recipe, while thumbing through the in-flight magazine after take off, waiting to reach cruising altitude to be told I could turn my approved electronic device to the ‘on position’, so that I could get out my iPod and silently work on learning all the music for my Santa Barbara Choral Society’s upcoming holiday concert.

We’re doing the Bach Magnificat (so lots of syllables and notes), the first movement of the Rutter Magnificat, the Poulenc Hodie Christus Natus Est, and a wide variety of holiday carols from around the world, including a couple in Russian. So lots to learn; thus my eagerness to turn my iPod to the ‘on position’.

The ‘on position’.

I loathe airline-speak. Whoever it is that writes the stuff the flight attendants have to read or memorize ought to take a course in communication. (Of course, the flight attendants, themselves, could often use a course in enunciation, so maybe it’s just as well that what they’re sing-songing to us is idiotic drivel.) But I have to wonder where they came up with ‘on position’ and ‘off position’ and ‘fully upright and locked position’ . What was wrong with the old standard ‘turn on’ as in ‘You may now turn on whatever it is you’ve brought on board to amuse yourself with during the flight, as long as it doesn’t transmit or receive a signal.’

Clearly, we fly too much. And I digress…back to squash.

The recipe that I ran across (with my magazine in the open position) combined roasted butternut squash, rosemary, and shallots.

As Rachael Ray would say: Yum-O!

It wasn’t too much of a carb challenge as written, although there was some sugar involved, but I decided that apart from ditching the sucrose, there were a few other minor modifications I could make that would drop the carb load even more and be delicious and nutritious to boot.

So when we got home, I set about to do just that. My version is savory and slightly sweet with just a little heat and spice in the background. Here’s the result:

Roasted Butternut Squash with Celeriac, Chiles, and Shallots

Serves 4 to 6

2 cups butternut squash, peeled and diced
1 cup celeriac (celery root), peeled and diced
1 fresh poblano or pasilla pepper, stemmed, seeded, and diced
3 shallots, peeled and quartered
1 teaspoon chopped fresh rosemary (or 1/4 teaspoon dried)
1 teaspoon coarse salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1 packet Splenda or Stevia
2 tablespoons olive oil

1. Place the diced squash, pepper, and shallots on a foil lined baking sheet, drizzle with the olive oil, sprinkle with the cinnamon, sweetener, salt, and pepper and toss to coat.
2. Roast in a 450 degree oven for about 20 minutes. Stir, and continue roasting for another 10 minutes until tender.
3. Meanwhile, place the diced celeriac into a sauce pan, cover with water, add 1/2 teaspoon salt, cover, and bring to a boil over high heat; reduce heat to medium and cook until tender, about 10 to 12 minutes. Drain well and set aside.
4. When squash and shallots are tender, add the celery root to the roasting pan and roast for another 5 or 6 minutes.
5. Check seasonings and serve.

Enjoy!

A generation ago, such a move might have incited a few quiet grumbles and grouses from the wizened silver heads, but the newest members of the burgeoning senior generation of today were the flower children of the 60s. They don’t grumble; they protest. With signs.

In the article, CSPI’s Michael Jacobsen (whom I rarely agree with) makes the valid point:

older people have high rates of heart disease and high blood pressure and…senior citizen centers, nursing homes, and assisted-living centers should not be worsening the health problems of seniors.

I agree with him for once. Assuming that the center receives government funds, tax dollars shouldn’t be used to support high-carb, trans-fat junk food nutrition for a group of people who are likely to be insulin resistant and probably already taking a laundry list of medications (perhaps paid for in part by the Medicare Prescription Plan) to lower their blood pressure, blood sugar, triglycerides, and cholesterol. And probably proton-pump inhibitors and acid blockers, too, for their GERD, which dining on Danish will only further exacerbate.

The protesters were trying to make this a matter of choice and rights–their right to choose what will be served to them at the center–but that argument won’t hold water. To my knowledge, the founders did not guarantee us an inalienable right to free jelly donuts. Don’t misunderstand my point here; however much I might disagree with the choice to go face first into a plate of jelly donuts, I’m the first to stand up for a person’s right to choose to engage in self-destructive behavior, so long as it doesn’t infringe on another person’s right to choose not to do so. But that’s not what’s going on here.
Nobody’s saying they can’t have their cake and eat it, too. Just that they’re no longer going to buy it for them.

(Hat tip to Jenny J. for the link.)

Summer–even here in paradise–is just no time to heat up a kitchen with big heavy meals. I’m not in the mood to eat them when it’s hot, much less cook them. We’ve been pretty much subsisting on grilled something-or-other and lots of sliced fresh tomatoes sprinkled with coarse sea salt.

The something-or-other is sometimes chicken, sometimes salmon or other fish, but most often it’s beef–a big juicy Porterhouse or a garlic-studded tri-tip roast or a marinated flank steak. Sometimes we’ll toss some olive-oil-rubbed asparagus spears or baby yellow patty pan squash on the grill with the meat, but a hunk of flavorful meat and fresh ripe tomatoes are about all Mike needs on a dinner plate to be happy.

I, on the other hand, like a little more variety in the menu and I’m always poking through food magazines and the food sections of newpapers for a new twist on something to try.

On just such a poking occasion, I happened upon a recipe for a Chilled Melon Soup that sounded cool and tasty, though since it was made with a fair amount of orange juice, I thought it might be a little too carb heavy. So I decided to trim it a little, carb-wise, and put my own spin on it.

The result is a delicious, nutritious, not too carby summer-weight treat. Serve it before a meal of sliced hot or cold grilled chicken breast on a bed of spicy arugula or baby greens tossed with a simple vinaigrette and a handful of slivered almonds for a scrumptious light supper that will hit the spot any hot summer night.

Chilled Fruity Melon Soup

Serves 6

2 cups fresh watermelon, peeled and cubed

1 cup fresh ripe cantaloupe, peeled and diced to ½”

1 package (about 10 ounces) frozen raspberries, thawed

½ cup plain yogurt

½ cup Sweet Orange Water (recipe follows—make ahead)

1 lime, juice only

1 teaspoon fresh ginger, peeled and minced

1 bunch fresh mint, for garnish

To make the Sweet Orange Water

½ cup water

1 orange, for zest

1 sprig fresh mint

8 packets Splenda, Stevia (or equivalent non-calorie sweetener of choice)

1. Place ½ cup water in a small saucepan; add the zest of one large orange and the sweetener and bring to a boil.

2. Turn off the heat and let the mixture infuse and cool for half an hour at room temperature or place mixture into a container with a tight fitting lid and infuse overnight in the refrigerator.

When ready to prepare the soup:

1. In a blender (working in batches if necessary) puree all ingredients, except the diced cantaloupe, until smooth and thick. (Add a bit of extra water, if needed, to achieve as thick but still soupy a consistency as you like.)

2. Refrigerate the soup for at least 30 minutes or up to several hours. Stir well before serving.

3. To serve, ladle soup into bowls, top with pieces of diced cantaloupe, and garnish with a sprig of fresh mint.

Protein per serving: 1.7 grams

Effective carbohydrate per serving = 10 grams

Enjoy and keep cool!