food

An Outrageous Experiment, Part 1

Carol’s coming home tomorrow, finally, after two and a half weeks in Chicago helping her mom. This was nothing sudden, and I had had a crazy idea in reserve, at which I hinted in my 2009 plan file, which I posted on New Year’s Eve. Some of you mailed me, puzzled, about this item:

Eat Less Sugar. Eat More Meat. Lose More Weight. (More on this shortly.)

One woman, whom I’ve known for a number of years, scolded me: “You’re crazy! You don’t need to lose any weight!”

That’s true. I do not need to lose any weight. However, when I do lose weight, I damned well want to know why.

Ok. There is some backstory that I haven’t given you yet. This may take me a couple of days to get through, but I think it’s important. So let’s get underway.

For a number of years now, I’ve weighed 155, and I consider that my ideal weight. I’m 5’9″ tall and lightly built. My blood chemistry is good and I have no major health problems. I walk regularly, and do weight training once a week. This has been my regimen (such that it is) since we moved to Colorado in 2003.

My customary breakfast all this time has been a bowl of Cheerios in 2% milk, and half of a 6 oz cup of fat-free, low-sugar “light” yogurt, mixed with organic blueberries. (The organic is incidental. I don’t care how they were grown; they just taste better.) I’m used to a certain period of muzziness that follows breakfast, and assumed it was just my blood rushing to my stomach. Morning is my productive time for writing, and my post-breakfast fuzzies slowed me down. I resent that, but I considered it inevitable until I read something online about the phenomenon. Eating carbs for breakfast will do that to you. Hmmm. So some months back, I just stopped eating Cheerios in the morning, hoping that I would be mentally sharper until lunch. And wham! It worked. I got a little hungry at 10:30 AM, but I did not lose my edge after breakfast. I was writing more, and better, from 7 AM all the way until noon. So I bought dry-roasted almonds to snack on mid-morning, and kept to the regimen.

Well, something else happened: In about three weeks, I lost five pounds.

I did not think that had five pounds to lose, but I shed another inch of waistline, and had to punch another hole in a couple of my belts. Carol told me she wanted me back at 155. However, I am unwilling to lose my morning edge. It was a bit of a conundrum, but I knew that, come January, I would be batching it again for almost three weeks, eating alone. So a totally outrageous experiment suggested itself…

More tomorrow.

Gretchen’s Patent Pasta Ponchos

Jan 11th, 2009

by Jeff Duntemann.

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jeffinpastaponcho

I got a couple of really nice things for Christmas. Carol gave me a Canon G10 camera, a device that probably contains more intelligence than NASA had at its disposal in 1965. In fact, I’m still getting used to some of that intelligence, but…more on that later.

The other thing worth noting is a hand-made item from my sister Gretchen, before whom all things in the textile kingdom bow. Months back, when Gretchen asked me what I wanted for Christmas, I told her, Make me a pasta poncho. I told her what I meant. And she did.

You see the results above. She took an ordinary 48″ X 26″ bath towel in appropriate tomato red, and somehow (this is a black art to me) inserted a turtleneck dead center. So whenever we have pasta now, I just pull it over my head, and I’m set. Nothing to tuck, tie, or button. And when I invariably dump some of the sauce on myself, well, it’s machine-washable. (I always seem to wear white shirts the nights I make our trademark Front Range buffalo spaghetti sauce.)

The photo was taken yesterday evening, just before I lit into a pile of whole wheat spaghetti. I had a minor problem; I’m alone in the house. So I took the new Canon G10, put it on my tripod, and placed it across the kitchen table where Carol’s chair usually is. While digging through the manual looking for how to use the self-timer, I discovered that the G10 has something new (to me): a face-recognition self-timer. It works like this: You set up the shot, select the face timer, and then trip the shutter. The camera waits until it sees a new face in the field of view, and then kicks off the self-timer. So all I had to do was amble (not run) over to my chair, grab my utensils, and look the camera in the, er, eye. Bang! Timer starts running. Five seconds later, photo happens.

It doesn’t have to be a solo portrait. Get the family together in one frame, trip the shutter, and the G10 will wait until it sees you (or at least one more face) in the frame before it starts the timer. Sheesh. For a guy who began in photography with 120 Tri-X Pan film and a motheaten folding bellows camera (patched at a bellows crack with a small piece of Curad Battle Ribbon) this treads on the thin edge of spooky. I can see myself the day after Christmas 2019, arguing with my brand-new Canon G256:

ME: “Hey, lensface, this time take the glint off my skull, ok?”

G256: “Sure thing, boss. I can render CGI hair if you want.”

ME: “Don’t be a wiseass. You know what I mean.”

G256: “That would be an image closer to your genetic reality.”

ME: “A genetic reality that hasn’t been fully expressed since 1982 or so.”

G256: “But that’s the Canon slogan for 2019: Reality never looked this good!”

ME: “Take the best picture you can. Don’t screw with reality. Just. Take. The. Picture.”

And I’d get the CGI hair. Just what the world needs: A WYGIWITRSB camera. (“What You Get Is What I Think Reality Should Be.” )

Not that I’m complaining; the G10 is a pretty spectacular camera, and it doesn’t talk yet. It can take macro shots that are almost like what you’d see through an inspection microscope. The thumbnail at left is a 1N23 microwave diode, slightly larger than life size. (The real thing is 5/8″ long.) Click on it. Dare ya. Count the dust grains. Wow.

Anyway. Gretchen made a pair of ponchos and gave one to each of us. We hung them on hangers in the laundry room just off the kitchen so they’re handy, and as soon as Carol comes home again I’m going to throw her a spaghetti feast like she’s never seen before–and if I miss, well, she’ll be wearing the poncho.

It's All for the Best

Nov 5th, 2008

by Jeff Duntemann.

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There's an odd human tendency to expect the worst in the absense of sufficient data. One of my readers wrote to me in a panic regarding my sadness of yesterday, saying: “Tell me you're not separating from Carol!”

People, get a grip. Carol's mom had a medical emergency and Carol is in Chicago looking after her. Our relationship has never been stronger. Carol's mom means a lot to me. I was still getting over the last vestiges of a very bad cold. I'm having my jawbone drilled for a dental implant tomorrow morning at 8 ayem sharp. My dinner exploded. You'd probably be a little down too.

As for dinner: I was being a bachelor, and I emptied a can of Bumble Bee canned salmon into a Corelle bowl to heat it up. I grill fresh salmon a lot, and I have reheated the leftovers in the microwave many times. Alas, canned salmon is packed in brine. Brine is a good conductor, and brine and microwaves have fun together. As best I can tell, a brine pocket somewhere inside that pinkish lump boiled and blew off the microwave lid and itself out of the bowl and all over the inside of the oven. I salvaged enough for dinner and for today's lunch, but that left me wiping out the oven for most of half an hour last night. I'm annoyed because it was a science experiment, and I'm supposed to understand a thing or two about microwave physics.

And my dogs. Well. QBit and Aero were playing tag all over the upper level right before dinner. They chase one another around at flank speed, leaning into the turns, yapping and growling and evidently having a fine time. I had gone to the powder room down the hall to get rid of some well-used diet root beer, and while the process was underway, the two of them barrelled unexpectedly into the room. QBit ran behind me and dove under the toilet tank. Aero, in hot pursuit, hopped up on his hind legs and put his front legs on the rim of the bowl. I half expected him to attempt a leap over the bowl on top of QBit, and tried to dodge. The rest I leave to your imagination. And now, whether I'm home alone or not, I close the door.

As for the election, I don't have much to say. It turned out almost exactly as I had expected, and I don't see any serious damage. Hey, we survived Bill Clinton. We survived GW Bush. Hell, we survived Herbert Hoover and Woodrow Wilson, compared to whom even GW is Gabriel the Archangel. We will survive Obama, to whom I wish all the best, and to whom (if they existed) I would send a case of Tut-B-Gone mummy foggers to deal with the lobbyists now lining up outside his door. Our problem is not now and will not be Obama. The problem is the parasites that gather about high office.

As for my Outrageous Proposition (see my entry for October 30, 2008) I think it went pretty well. Thanks to all who followed the rules and shared their thoughts, and I apologize for not participating more vigorously myself. Headcolds don't schedule their appearances in advance, and this one really took it out of me. But I encourage everybody to go back and read the comments. Aren't those better than raging rants? Isn't life just, well, better without anger?

I will be drugged tomorrow and may not post. After that, the cone of silence once more descends over politics. Like canned salmon, a little goes a long way. (Especially when you heat it up too much!)

Fruit Wine and Pork Stew

Mar 3rd, 2008

by Jeff Duntemann.

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Not much time tonight, but it's worth reporting a recipe that Carol threw together off the top of her head earlier today:

Pork Stew

Cut a two-pound pork roast (not a loin) into 1/2″ cubes. Sprinkle flour on a cookie sheet and then salt the flour. Coat the pork cubes with flour and salt, then brown them in oil. Add half a 750 ml bottle of some sweetish wine. We used Mountain Spirit Winery's Angel Blush, a fruit wine consisting of 40% apple, 40% pear, and 20% raspberry. Cover and simmer the browned meat in the wine while you cut up three Yukon Gold potatoes and two apples (we used Braeburns) into similar sized cubes. Simmer for three-four hours. It's not critical. Add water if the liquid level gets too low. The apples will break down and contribute some body to the gravy. Makes a lot; we should get three suppers out of it.

I tend to like sweeter wines, but I've never really warmed to fruit wine of any kind. I just finished the bottle of Breezy Hills Raspberry we brought home from Iowa (near Minden) last October, and it wasn't terrible but wasn't great. Fruit wines tend to taste yeasty to me, a little like beer, and I don't know if it's just a taste quirk of mine, or if I simply haven't tried any really good fruit wines.

The stew recipe was an experiment to see if stews (which can sometimes have a sweet edge to good effect) could be simmered in a sweet wine. The Angel Blush is a little too sweet to drink in any quantity, so we used it in the stew, and it worked very well. I don't think I would cook a darker meat in sweet wine, but for whatever reason, it went beautifully with lean pork. Give it a shot.