KathleenDaelemans.com

What's For Supper? 50 of the World's Best Food Blogs!

 
By Kathleen Daelemans

Photo by Dorie Greenspan

You didn't answer my IM.

You didn't answer my Email.

You didn't answer my call.

I sent you a Twitter.

I texted you a week ago.

Did you fall off the face of the earth?

NO. I'm boycotting technology for the rest of the summer. The thought of sitting behind a desk when I could be gardening, cooking, riding my bike, reading a book, swimming, contemplating grains of sand, or writing, actually writing, creatively which doesn't come easily you know and especially not when all my in-boxes are full, makes me want to purchase a one way ticket to paradise for the purpose of shutting out everything not originally found in nature. That's right. Gone fishing. Ta ta. See ya later.

If it doesn't require food, clothing, shelter, love, water, air or weather to survive, it's won't be invited to my fantasy summer cottage. A whole summer without a television, a computer an ipod, an iphone, a movie, a cord, a charger, a ringer, an instruction manual, or anything at all beeping mad at me. Heaven! Pure vanilla extract heaven.

If you have the means to make this happen for me, please reply. Will cook for kidnappers. Will cook for nice accomodations.

The reason all this fodder popped into my head in the first place is because I've been trying to find 17 minutes of peace and quite to devour a piece Nick Wyke wrote for the London Times way back in February if you can imagine, 50 of The World's Best Food Blogs. No, I didn't make the cut but one of my girl-chef-crushes did, Dorie Greenspan.

Ever the deliciously reliable chef with stacks of inspiring recipes written in her sparkling voice, of course her blog made the cut. Instead of showing you her name on his list, I'm using the opportunity to introduce you to her Buttermilk Biscuits.

She's the first to sing their praises, "I love this kind of convenience almost as much as I love feeling like a genius because I can have something fresh-from-the-oven on the spur of the moment." And I'm right behind her. What's not to love about warm, buttery biscuits?

Dorie's Buttermilk Biscuits, Zesty Pickled Cucumbers and Chunky Spicy Egg Salad in Parade Magazine. Read Dorie's full article: Biscuits on Parade: A Recipe + A Biscuit Tip-Sheet

Other Blogs on Mr. Wyke's list of the top 50...

Simply Recipes - a humbly written, family website chock full of family recipes for the home cook.

Wild Yeast - for the inner white carb lover in me!

The Food Section - a pioneering weblog about food, wine, and travel.

Recipes from Around the Web...Barley Soup With Mushrooms and Kale

Recipe by Martha Rose Shulman for the New York Times

Photograph by Andrew Scrivani for the New York Times

Forward by Kathleen Daelemans

I've been a Martha Rose Shulman fan since my days of cooking in my bare feet (when in Maui...). Mediterranean Light, Provencal Light ((Winner of the 1994 Julia child Award, Best Book, Healthy Diets category) and Mexican Light

are of the most dog-eared books in my collection.  

The recipes are well written, very well tested and delicious. 

Penny Saver Gifts for Foodies!

If you're looking for a sweet gift for someone you care about (and only want to spend a penny); a hostess gift, a gracious thank-you, or a fun birthday gift -- check out Shulman's whimsically illustrated Little Vegetarian Feasts: Main-Dish Collection. Four slightly-larger-than-pocket-sized books perfect for novice and accomplished cooks alike - Main Dish Soups, Main Dish Grains, Main Dish Salads and Main Dish Tarts and Grains. The books are no longer in print but are widely available on Amazon from reputable sellers starting from a penny. 

If you have a slightly larger budget...say a dollar...Tuck one of the books into a dish towel lined basket with an ingredient or two and a bouquet of whatever you have blooming in your garden...yellow and white daisies with green and purple basil make a lovely bouquet. Oh yes I did too say that. I don't have a green thumb. If I can grow something without killing it, you can too! 

Let's Eat Already! 

Barley Soup With Mushrooms and Kale

By MARTHA ROSE SHULMAN

This is a comforting winter meal in a bowl based on a classic Central European mushroom and barley soup.

1/2 ounce dried porcini mushrooms

2 cups boiling water

1 to 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, as needed

1 large onion, chopped

1/2 pound cremini mushrooms, cleaned, trimmed and sliced thick

2 large garlic cloves, minced

Salt, preferably kosher salt, to taste

3/4 cup whole or pearl barley

1 1/2 quarts chicken stock or water

A bouquet garni made with a few sprigs each thyme and parsley, and a bay leaf and a Parmesan rind

8 to 10 ounces kale (regular or cavolo nero), stemmed and washed thoroughly

Freshly ground pepper to taste

1. Place the dried porcini mushrooms in a bowl or a Pyrex measuring cup, and pour on two cups boiling water. Let sit for 30 minutes. Set a strainer over a bowl, and line it with cheesecloth. Lift the mushrooms from the water and squeeze over the strainer, then rinse in several changes of water. Squeeze out the water and set aside. Strain the soaking water through the cheesecloth-lined strainer. Add water as necessary to make two cups. Set aside.

2. Heat the oil in a large, heavy soup pot or Dutch oven over medium heat, and add the onion. Cook, stirring often, until just about tender, about five minutes, and add the sliced fresh mushrooms. Cook, stirring, until the mushrooms are beginning to soften, about three minutes, and add the garlic and 1/2 teaspoon of salt. Continue to cook for about five minutes, until the mixture is juicy and fragrant. Add the reconstituted dried mushrooms, the barley, the mushroom soaking liquid, and the stock or water. Salt to taste. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat, cover and simmer 45 minutes. Meanwhile, stack the kale leaves in bunches and cut crosswise into slivers. Simmer the bouquet garni during the 45 minute simmering, then pull it out when the soup is done.

3. Add the kale to the simmering soup, and continue to simmer for another 15 to 20 minutes. The barley should be tender and the broth aromatic. The kale should be very tender. Remove the bouquet garni, taste and adjust salt, add a generous amount of freshly ground pepper and serve.

Yield: Serves six to eight

Advance preparation: The soup will keep for about three days in the refrigerator, but the barley will swell and absorb liquid, so you will have to add more to the pot when you reheat.

Recipes From Around the Web...Skinny Soup!

 
Forward by Kathleen Daelemans

Recipe by Russ Parsons for the Los Angeles Times.

Photograph by Gary Friedman for the Los Angeles Times

I've always chosen recipes for their dizzying, hypnotic effect, for their overpowering force to make an otherwise clear-thinking, dedicated (forever behind) work-a-holic, jeapordize her financial security by leaving work early for a turn at the stove and a glass of wine.

The second I saw this recipe, I fell in love with it for the sherry vinegar alone. You know a bowl of soup is going to be good when it's finished with a splash of good vinegar. Plus, it calls for pasta, fennel seeds and parmesan cheese.

Russ calls his recipe Spring Soup of Greens and Pasta. I call it Skinny Soup. It's fill-you-up great, really flavorful, really hearty and really easy. And maybe the best thing about it after it's culinary integrity,

Ding, ding, ding bonus! Calling all yellow-polka-dot-bikini-season phobes....
Get out your flip-flops, paint your toenails and head to the seashore. This soup is a mere 200 calories per serving. For that price, you can have thirds!

Russ Parson's
Spring Soup of Greens and Pasta

Mr. Parsons is also the author of
How to Pick a Peach:
The Search for Flavor from Farm to Table

Before you get started: One-half pound
leafy greens yields 8 cups coarsely chopped.

Cooks Tip: Be in love with
the greens you choose. This is not
the time to make Bitter Green Soup.
 
The mixed leafy greens can include
mustard, kale, collard, beet and turnip
 greens, chard as well as dandelions.
(Watch the dandelions as too many
might make the soup bitter.)

If your'e at all nervous about bitterness,
 stick to one variety of greens and consider
the more mild beet greens, swiss chard

Total time: 40 minutes

Servings: 6

Ingredients

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 onion, chopped

4 cloves garlic, minced

1/2 pound mixed leafy greens, stemmed and coarsely chopped (about 8 cups)

3 cups vegetable or chicken stock diluted with 3 cups water

2 teaspoons salt, more to taste

3/4 cup small pasta shapes (such as riso or stars), or 1 cup cooked rice

1 teaspoon sherry vinegar, more to taste

1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1/2 teaspoon finely ground fennel seed

6 tablespoons grated Parmigiano-Reggiano

1. Heat the olive oil in a 4-quart soup pot over medium heat and cook the onions until they soften, about 3 minutes. Add the garlic and cook until it becomes fragrant, about 2 minutes. Add the coarsely chopped greens to the pot, a handful at a time, and let them wilt, stirring constantly.

2. Add the diluted stock and the salt and slowly bring to a simmer, then cook until the greens are soft (but not darkened or faded), about 10 minutes.

3. While the greens are cooking, cook the pasta in a large pot of rapidly boiling salted water until tender, about 5 minutes. Drain and set aside until the soup is done.

4. Coarsely shred the greens with an immersion blender. Some will become puréed, but mostly they should be shredded. If you don't have an immersion blender, a food processor will do a better job than a stand blender. Transfer half the greens and liquid to a food processor and carefully purée until the greens are finely chopped. Reserve in a mixing bowl and repeat with the remaining greens and liquid. Wipe out the soup pot and return the greens and liquid to it.

5. Bring the soup to a simmer, and stir in the cooked pasta and 1 teaspoon vinegar. If the pasta clumps together (it probably will), let it warm and stir it again to break it up. Season with the pepper and the fennel seed. Taste, and add more salt or vinegar if needed.

6. To serve, ladle the soup into heated shallow bowls and garnish with a generous grating of Parmigiano-Reggiano.

Each serving: 192 calories; 5 grams protein; 28 grams carbohydrates; 2 grams fiber; 6 grams fat; 2 grams saturated fat; 4 mg. cholesterol; 890 mg. sodium.

Recipe by Russ Parsons for the Los Angeles Times.

Russ Parsons is the food and wine columnist for the Los Angeles Times, a winner of multiple James Beard Awards for his journalism, and the recipient of the IACP/Bert Greene Award for distinguished writing.

Mr. Parsons is also the best-selling author of How to Pick a Peach: The Search for Flavor from Farm to Table and How to Read a French Fry: And other Stories of Intriguing Kitchen Science .

Photograph by Gary Friedman for the Los Angeles Times. Gary Friedman is an AP award winning photographer for the Los Angeles Times.

More Recipes From Around the Web...Mark Bittman's Savory Polenta Pizza & Other Easy Polenta Recipes

By Kathleen Daelemans

(Except the parts that are written by Mark Bittman for the New York Times. And the photograph. I didn't take that either. The very gifted Francesco Tonelli took the shot probably right before he sat down to one of the best meals of his life; Mark Bittman's Savory Polenta Pizza.

I've been a Bittman Fan ever since...well ever since I can remember. I think I own every single one of his books. And have given out more copies as gifts than any single person in America. Except possibly my Mom. And probably his Mom too.

How to Cook Everything is the Joy of Cooking of our time and a must have cookbook in every home with a stove. A copy of How to Cook Everything is private culinary school for the price of a lamb chop. It's that good. And it's that necessary to have. The lessons are invaluable.

You won't be throwing this cookbook against the wall in the midst of preparing a recipe that "sounded really great" only to find out  cook times have been ommitted or ingredients in the list somehow don't make it into the instructions. In an age where many cookbook authors hire ghost recipe testers, Bittman clearly doesn't. Every single recipe turns out, every single time.

Especially in these most uncertain times, cooking at home and sharing meals around the table with family and friends has never been more important than right now. There is nothing that will propel you faster towards the life of happiness and prosperity you deserve, than a healthy body and a healthy mind. You owe it to yourself. And you owe it to your children.

Food hangovers, waking up feeling full of guilt and shame because the food you're eating is too rich and too caloric is no way to live. With an open mind and a well written cookbook or two1, it really is possible to get deeply satisfying meals on the table quicker than your kids can finish their homework.

 Especially if you read the recipes through before you attempt them, say the night before, you just might reconnect with the joyful feelings that come with preparing restorative meals for those you love. 

I chose Mark Bittman's Recipe for Savory Polenta Pizza as one to highlight for several reasons. Polenta (cornmeal) is extremely inexpensive (unless you go looking for the fancy Italian brands) and it's just something you should know how to make. Polenta can be served warm, grits style, with butter and Parmesan, or with a meat or mushroom sugo ( long cooked Italian sauces).

   For a super decadent, once-in-a-while, very rich polenta supper, serve it creamy with a little butter stirred in and then topped with Judy Rodger's Tuscan Liver Sauce (recipe below). I made it many times during my tutelidge under Chef Judy Rodgers in her San Francisco restaurant, Zuni Cafe. The sauce is one of my all time favorites and is absolutely wonderful served on grilled bread, cut into toast points (small triangles) as an appetizer too. Read the full article by Florence Fabricant for the New York Times, THE CHEF: JUDY RODGERS; A Humble Ticket to a Tuscan Treat

Leftover warm polenta can be spread out on a cookie sheet to "harden" in the regrigerator overnight transforming it into what is known as "hard" polenta (for it's firm texture). Hard polenta can be served "pizza style" as in Bittman's Recipe (below), or it can be but into small toast size traingles and pan "fried" to golden brown using butter (or even grilled) and then served with eggs. Cut into crouton size cubes, hard polenta is wonderful in salads. 

For a wonderful article on the the joys of Sugo, check out San Francisco Gate's, Seduced by Sugo, Long-Cooked Italian Sauces Captivate Chefs and Diners, by Tara Duggan, Chronicle Staff Writer. Photograph by Craig Lee for the Chronicle. 

 

---

A Burning Issue – This Versatile Polenta Cooks in the Oven
by Kathleen Daelemans

Full Article

Creamy Baked Polenta
by Kathleen Daelemans

To prepare, preheat oven to 350  degrees. Pour 1 quart of water into a 1 1/2 quart, nonreactive baking dish. Add 1 cup coarse polenta, salt and cracked black pepper to taste and 1 tablespoon unsalted butter. Place dish on center oven rack and bake uncovered 40-50 minutes, stirring at the halfway point. Polenta is done when practically all the liquid has been absorbed. Taste it. If it's creamy and good, it's done. If it's granular and little unpleasant, let it cook a little longer. Makes 4 to 6 servings.

Polenta can be served simply with butter or cheese, but to create a heartier meal, you can top it with just about any pasta topping. I'm quite sure this meat sauce will please any meat eater, including your husband. I've served it over plates of steaming pasta, spooned it over grilled eggplant and layered it into lasagna. I nearly always make this recipe in double batches because it freezes so nicely.

Meat Sauce for Warm Polenta and Pasta Noodles

By Kathleen Daelemans

In a 3-quart or similar size saucepan, heat
1 tablespoon olive oil over medium-low
heat. Add 1 peeled, cored and finely diced
onion, 1 peeled and finely diced carrot,
1 finely diced celery stalk and 1/2 pound of
finely diced porcini or button mushrooms
and cook until softened,
about fifteen minutes.

 Add 3/4 pound lean ground beef or a mixture of beef, veal and pork, and using a long-handled spoon, break up the meat and cook, stirring often,
 6 to 8 minutes (you'll still see pink).

Add 2 tablespoons tomato paste and 1/2 cup good quality red wine, beef stock or chicken stock. Add 1 28-ounce can peeled and chopped plum tomatoes and their juice. Bring to a simmer and cook until thickened, about 25 minutes.

Add 1/4 cup loosely packed, roughly chopped herbs such as parsley,
basil, oregano and or sage in any combination you like.
Cook 5 minutes more. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
Serve immediately.

Makes 8 servings.

Meat sauce tips and shortcuts by Kathleen Daelemans

Prep the veggies the night before.Throw veggies in a minichopper (separately) instead of mincing them perfectly by hand.

To avoid tomato paste waste, scrape tomato paste from its can, place it in a small freezer bag, squish into a log and freeze it so you can cut off the small amounts recipes call for without wasting the whole can, which can mold pretty quickly in the refrigerator.

Make a double batch. It freezes quite well.

It's delicious served over pasta or broiled leftover hard polenta with or without a poached egg.

If you can't get your hands on fresh porcini mushrooms, use 1/4 ounce dried porcini mushrooms. Place them in a small bowl with hot water from the tap for 30 minutes. Remove them from the liquid, rinse them, squeeze and discard excess liquid and finely chop. Strain the mushroom soaking water through a fine mesh strainer or cheesecloth and use it in the sauce.

Mark Bittman's Polenta ‘Pizza’ With Pancetta and Spinach for the New York Times

The Full Article: Your Morning Pizza, Mark Bittman for The New York Times

Time: About 45 minutes, plus one hour’s chilling

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil, more for pan

1/2 cup milk, preferably whole

Salt

1 cup coarse cornmeal

Freshly ground black pepper

1 small onion, chopped

1/2 cup (about 4 ounces) chopped pancetta

1 pound spinach, washed, trimmed and dried

1 to 1 1/2 cups Gorgonzola cheese, crumbled.

1. Heat oven to 450 degrees; brush a layer of olive oil on a pizza pan or cookie sheet. In a medium saucepan over medium-high heat, combine milk with 2 1/2 cups water and a large pinch of salt. Bring just about to a boil, reduce heat to medium, and add cornmeal in a steady stream, whisking all the while to prevent lumps from forming. Turn heat to low and simmer, whisking frequently, until thick, 10 or 15 minutes. If mixture becomes too thick, whisk in a bit more water; you want a consistency approaching thick oatmeal.

2. Stir 1 tablespoon oil into cooked cornmeal (polenta). Spoon it onto prepared pan, working quickly so polenta does not stiffen; spread it evenly to a thickness of about 1/2 inch all over. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, cover baking sheet with plastic wrap and put it in refrigerator until it is firm, an hour or more (you can refrigerate polenta overnight if you prefer).

3. Put polenta in oven and bake for 25 to 30 minutes, or until it begins to brown and crisp on edges. Meanwhile, put two tablespoons oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add onion and pancetta and cook, stirring occasionally, until onion is soft and pancetta is nicely browned, about 10 minutes. Use a slotted spoon to take onion and pancetta out of pan; set aside. Add spinach to skillet and sauté until it releases its water and pan becomes dry; sprinkle with salt and lots of pepper.

4. Take polenta out of oven, sprinkle with Gorgonzola, then spread onion-pancetta mixture and spinach evenly on top of cheese; drizzle with another tablespoon olive oil. Put pizza back in oven for two minutes, or until cheese begins to melt and pancetta and vegetables are warmed through. Cut into slices and serve hot or at room temperature.

Yield: 4 servings.

Variation: Before you put polenta in oven, top it with thin slices of fresh mozzarella, two or three thinly sliced Roma tomatoes or a bit of tomato sauce, and a handful of fresh basil leaves.

 

Judy Rodger's Tuscan Liver Sauce

Click for the full 

Article from the New York Times

Peruse the Zuni Cafe Cookbook by (my culinary mentor) Judy Rodgers

Time: 1 hour

8 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, approximately

3 ounces pancetta, minced

1/3 cup slivered shallots

6 to 8 fresh sage leaves, torn

6 ounces chicken livers, picked over and finely chopped

2 tablespoons capers, preferably salt-packed, rinsed, pressed dry on paper towels and coarsely chopped

2 to 3 salt-packed anchovy fillets, rinsed and chopped (optional)

1/2 cup red wine, approximately

Freshly cracked black pepper

Salt to taste

1 bay leaf, lightly bruised

Grilled or toasted baguette (not sourdough), soft or grilled polenta, boiled pappardelle or mashed potatoes.

1. Heat one tablespoon oil in a large skillet. Add pancetta, and cook, stirring, until it just begins to brown. Reduce heat to low, add another tablespoon of oil, and stir in shallots and sage. Cook for about a minute, until shallots have softened.

2. Add livers, capers and optional anchovies. Stir, adding 3 to 5 more tablespoons oil. Continue to cook, stirring occasionally, until livers are putty-colored but have not become stiff. Stir in most of the wine.

3. Bring to a simmer, and season generously with pepper. Add salt if needed. Simmer 5 to 10 minutes, until some of the liquid has cooked down and mixture is thick enough to hold its shape on a spoon but is not dry. Remove from heat, add bay leaf, and set aside for 15 to 20 minutes.

4. Briefly reheat mixture, adjusting oil, wine and seasonings to taste. Remove bay leaf, and serve spooned over toast or on polenta, pappardelle or mashed potatoes.

Yield: 4 servings.

Judy Rodgers is the chef and an owner of Zuni Cafe in San Francisco. Online, at nytimes.com/dining, she narrates a video presentation of her recipes.

Marcella Hazan's Bolognese

Peruse Every Night Italian 

Liz Bills of Nopa restaurant in San Francisco adapted a classic recipe from cookbook author Marcella Hazan for this dish. It becomes more like a 5- or 6-hour bolognese if made in this smaller batch. You may substitute pork and/or lamb, or a mix, and a mix of cooked and uncooked meat. If you can, marinate the meat with salt overnight and eat it the day after it is made. Serve over bowls of creamy polenta or toss into pasta of your choice.

INGREDIENTS:

1 pound uncooked or cooked beef, pork or lamb, or a mix, ground or finely chopped (see note)

1 tablespoon kosher salt + more to taste

2 tablespoons olive oil

1/3 cup butter, softened

3/4 cup yellow chopped onion, in small dice

Freshly ground pepper to taste

1 cup chopped carrots, in small dice

1 cup chopped celery, in small dice

1 1/2 cups whole milk

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg (optional)

1 1/2 cups dry white wine

2 cups chopped canned tomatoes with juice

Freshly grated Parmesan cheese, to serve

INSTRUCTIONS:

Instructions: Rub the salt into the ground or chopped meat, preferably 24 hours ahead of time.

In a large saucepan or Dutch oven over medium-low heat, add the oil and butter. When the butter melts, add the onion and a good pinch of salt and pepper. Saute until onion has lost its crunch and become sweet, 8-10 minutes. Add carrots, celery, another pinch of salt, and cook until they, too, have lost their crunch, another 8-10 minutes.

If you are using raw meat, add it first and cook until all the pink is gone. If you are using cooked meat, cook until it is completely coated with the vegetable base and has cooked out any of its pinkness, as well. If using both raw and cooked meat, cook raw meat first, until it is the same doneness as the cooked meat, then add the cooked meat. Make sure you break up any big clumps of meat.

Add milk. This will look like a lot of liquid, but it will all cook off over time. Reduce heat to low and stir frequently to prevent burning. Simmer until all liquid has evaporated, about 1-1 1/2 hours, stirring every 10 minutes. Add nutmeg, if using.

Add wine and simmer as you did the milk, until it evaporates, another 1-1 1/2 hours, stirring about every 10 minutes.

Carefully add tomatoes, stirring them into the sauce. Reduce heat as low as it will go, and cook for 3 hours. Stir occasionally to make sure nothing sticks to the bottom.

Adjust seasoning with salt and pepper, if needed. Serve over pasta or creamy polenta and top with Parmesan cheese and black pepper.

Note: To use up bits of cooked meat, it's best to chop it rather than grinding it.

Per serving: 270 calories, 13 g protein, g 10 carbohydrate, 16 g fat (8 g saturated), 62 mg cholesterol, 1,078 mg sodium, 2 g fiber.

Cooking Thin with Chef Kathleen

200 Easy Recipes

For Healthy Weight Loss

by Kathleen Daelemans

Cooking Thin isn't a bestseller because people don't love it, you know. I worked very hard on that book. Especially because it was my very first book, I was (and will always remain) very driven to earn your trust and respect by providing you with very well written, quick and easy recipes comprised of easily accessible and affordable ingredients. The recipes are written in culinary short hand (think speedy weeknight suppers) with extra tips for morphing them into showy meals for easy entertaining with little or no fuss.

 

Will.I.Am Is Change. What Are You?

by Kathleen Daelemans

     Will.I.Am (pronounced Will, I am), Black Eyed Peas musical frontman,

producer and the Tour de Force inspiring America's youth and young at heart to

"get involved" and "Be the Change", debuted his first collaboration with David

Foster, "America's Song" live onstage at the Kennedy Center Opera House

featuring Seal, Bono and Mary J. Blige in a taping of the Oprah Winfrey show.

Watch the video and listen to the America's Song story at Dipdive.com . The

song is free for twenty four hours or through Inauguration Tuesday on

Oprah.com.

What Change Has Inspired

You? This isn't the first time

Will.I.Am debuted a politically

charged song on Oprah's show",

reports MTV.com. In November,

just days after Obama won the

election, Will premiered the video for his new song "It's a New Day."

Will.I.Am - New Music - More Music Videos

The video flashed pictures of Obama on election night and crowds celebrating

the Illinois senator's victory alongside images of historical figures like

Abraham Lincoln and Harriet Tubman. It also featured celebrity appearances

from bandmate, Fergie, as well as actors Olvia Wilde, Jonathan Schaech and

Kerry Washington. 

What Change Have You Inspired?

When he released his first song about the then

presidential hopeful, "Yes We Can," Will gathered

celebrity friends including John Legend, Scarlett

Johansson and Common for the video. The next

song, "We Are the Ones," also had a star-filled

video, featuring George Lopez and Jessica Alba. 

What Change

Will You Inspire Now?  

Explaining his inspiration for

his, "Yes We Can," song, Will

wrote in an accompanying blog

post that he was in a recording

studio watching one of the

presidential debates and feeling torn

between candidates when the idea struck.

"I was never really big on

politics ... and actually, I'm

still not big on politics," he 

wrote. But "the outcome of

the last two elections has 

saddened me ...

on how unfair, backwards, upside down,

unbalanced, untruthful, corrupt and just simply,

how wrong the world and politics are...

So this year I wanted to get involved

and do all I could,  early."

Read the full aritcle,

Will.I.Am Gathers Common,

Nick Cannon, Scarlett Johansson

For Barak Obama Video, By Gil Kaufman.

On winning an Emmy for "Yes We Can"and for being recognized at the

Webby Awards as the Artist of the Year where acceptance speeches were

limited to five words, he proclaimed, Now We Know We Can! Read

the full article, YES WE CAN SONG wins an EMMY!  at Dipdive.com

"What inspired the "Yes

We Can" video? In an interview with Rolling Stone, Will was asked about his

inpsiration for the "Yes We Can" video, "About four years ago we worked with the

DNC and I became really good friends with Terry McAuliffe, who

represented  Kerry. He called me and he

asked if I was gonna support Hillary, and at

the time, I was confused — I didn't know

what I was gonna do. A couple of weeks

passed and at Super Tuesday in New

Hampshire I saw Obama's speech, and that's

what did it for me— he inspired me to want

me to change  myself to better America.  It

made me reflect on the opportunities I had. I

thought of all the civil rights protests and Kennedy and Martin Luther King and all

the freedom fighters.  I was like, "Wow, this is crazy, because Obama is probably

one of the only blatant freedom fighters that we have right now in the media." And

it all made sense to me, the difference between an agenda and a movement. And I

was like, "Wow, this is a movement." Read the full Rolling Stone article,

"Yes We Can": The Story Behind Will.i.am's Viral Hit

Will.I.Am

Is Change.

What Change 

Are You>

Listen to "A New Day", listen to "Yes

We Can", listen to "America's Song".Become

the change you want for your children. Become the change you want for your

parents. Become the change you want for your neighbor. Become the change you

want for yourself.

"Believe in the hope of a better day...Change has come to America...We have all

sacrificed...This victory belongs to us...The road ahead will be long. Our climb will

be steep...There will be setbacks and false starts. 

                                                                                                                                      Summon a new spirit of

patriotism; of service  and

responsibility where each of

us resolves to pitch in and

work  harder and look after

not only ourselves, but each other.

Let us remember that if this financial crisis taught

us anything, its that we cannot have a thriving Wall

Street while Main Street suffers - in this country,

we rise or fall as one nation; as one  people.

 

The true genius of America -

is  that America can change.

Our union can be perfected.

And what we have already

achieved gives us hope

forwhat we can and

must achieve tomorrow. 

 

America, we have

come so far.

We have seen so

much. But there

is so much more to do.

So  tonight, let us ask

ourselves - if  our

children should live

to see the next

century; if my daughters should be so lucky to live as long as Ann

Nixon Cooper, what change will they see? What progress will we have made?

                                                                              

  This is our chance to

answer that call.

This is our moment.

This is our time -

to put our people

back to work and open

doors of opportunity

for our kids; to restore

prosperity  and

promote the cause of peace; to reclaim the American Dream and reaffirm that

fundamental truth - that out of

many, we are  one; that while we

breathe, we hope,

and where we are met with

cynicism, and doubt, and those

who tell us that we cant, we will

respond with that timeless creed

that sums up the spirit of a

people...

All of the above excerpts taken from

Barak Obama's Acceptacne Speech.

Watch the Video, Read the Full Text at

Huffington Post.com

This Land Was Made For You and Me!

Recipes From Around the Web...Old World Italian Cheesecake

By Kathleen Daelemans

My favorite cheesecake in the whole wide world is from the Carnegie Deli on 7th Avenue in New York City. Totally worth the airfare. It comes to the table on a very plain, off-white colored plate. Nothing fancy mind you. It's the Ugly Duckling of desserts unless you order it with strawberries on top.

One bite and you're forever changed. A serving about sixth of an entire, extra high, ten-inch cheesecake. Enormous. Huge. You must share. With three of your very best friends. Don't get me wrong, I am diabolically opposed to sharing desserts. Big no no in my book. But I don't know a human being on earth capable of consuming an entire order by themselves. 

Why We Love You

Carnegie Deli Cheesecake is served ice cold. Almost frozen in the very center. This is a good thing. A very good thing. The texture is a cross between an extremely smooth gelato and a flourless chocolate cake that's not in the least bit over cooked; rich, creamy, smooth and very dense.

This Seventh Avenue cheesecake is something you save up for. Something you work for. Something you must earn and be worthy of. No, really. I certainly wouldn't share a slice with just any old someone. Everyone knows you always give away the mediocre stuff in life and hoard the really great stuff for yourself. I mean, it's not like you can just stop in every day for a slice of cheesecake and a cup of coffee.

Buyer Beware

A slice of Carnegie Deli Cheesecake must have...probably around...at least...uh...I'm guessing...hmm...well, I shudder to think! It doesn't really matter anyway. It falls under my Urban Food Rules which clearly state you can only enjoy carefree servings of authentic foods in their city and state of origin, in high season. For instance, the only time I eat sourdough bread is when I'm in San Francisco or when I break down and bake a loaf myself. The only time I enjoy Hawaii Vintage Chocolate is when I'm in Hawaii (I think my last visit was in 2000).

The only time I splurge on Cow Girl Creamery Cheeses is when I'm at the Cow Girl Creamery Cowgirl Creamery at Tomales Bay Foods, 80 4th Street, Point Reyes Station, California 415.663.9335, Open Wednesday thru Sunday (last visit two years ago). The only times I allow myself to eat an entire brownie all by myself without a pang of guilt is either when my mother bakes a batch and I happen to pop in at the right moment or when I'm lucky enough to be standing in line at Recchiuti, a very fancy chocolatier in the Ferry Plaza. 

Recchiuti Brownies are by far the absolute best brownie I've tasted outside of my Mom's and my own. Their Fudge Brownies are truly fudgy. Not the playdough kind of fudgy, the culinary  kind of fudgy - as in rich and gooey and very, very dense. They're made with the very best chocolate brownie baking ingredients and they're packed with chunks of the finest unsweetened chocolate". I don't know anyone who has an extra $16 bucks laying around in this economy but if you do, and you need a special pick-me-up-gift for someone who is ill, or for their caregiver perhaps, or maybe you're looking for the World's Greatest Valentines Day Brownies to gift, all you have to do is click here. Anyway, the point of the Urban Food Rules is to stick to them! You'll be able to enjoy life's greatest culinary offerings and your great health too. 

You, Your Fork and a Big Giant Slice of Cheesecake

Since my copy of How to Feed Friends and Influence People: The Carnegie Deli...A Giant Sandwich, a Little Deli, a Huge Success, hasn't arrived in the mail yet, I went on a mad cheesecake recipe hunt and stumbled upon what I think may be one of the greatest of all time, Ciro Marino's Ricotta Cheesecake. It's an old world Italian Ricotta Cheesecake.  Or it feels like it anyway. But afterall, how old world can a Graham Cracker really be? Nevertheless, it ranks number one in the exhaustive search I conducted. It calls for lemon zest and is lightly scented with a hint of rose and orange blossom waters too.

Author Amy Scattergood did a beautiful piece on cheesecakes in the L.A. Times which is how I stumbled upon the recipe in the first place; Old-fashioned cheesecakes without all the trappings.

Marino's cheesecake will set you back 504 calories per serving. Crazy! I recommend that you cut the recipe in half and use a smaller pan. Frankly, I can't see how 5 pounds of ricotta cheese can fit into a ten-inch springform pan but then The L.A. Times has a rock solid culinary team so who am I to second guess?  I have not tried this recipe yet but when I do, I will cut the recipe in half and skip straight to an 8-inch spring form pan but I'm a huge risk taker. In fact, I'd say I ruin more dessert recipes than I do but you can't fault a girl for trying. And besides, if I didn't take such huge leaps, I woldn't be able to come up with great recipes that won't kill ya. 

I highly recommend you watch the video and thoroughly read the recipe notes from L.A. Times Kitchen Manager, Noelle Carter before you head into the kitchen. Noelle and her team tested cheesecakes, including Mr. Marino's for two solid weeks before giving their okay on this version.

Thought: I don't know that I'd go to all the trouble to prepare this recipe if you're going to skip the rose and orange blossom waters. I probably wouldn't go running around for the candied lemon peels though. I would just use more zest.

Cooking Notes: After making this once exactly as is written, I'd probably make the following adjustments:

I would not use the 6 Tablespoons of butter called for to butter the springform pan. Seems gratuitous but then I'm sure it's also part of the soul of this recipe. I might experiment with zero fat Greek Yogurt instead of the sourcream, I might use half skim milk ricotta cheese and half regular, I might cut back on the powdered sugar. 

Watch Ciro Marino make his famous Old World Italian Ricotta Cheesecake

Marino's Ricotta Cheesecake

Total time: 1 1/2 hours, plus chilling time

Servings: 16

Note: Adapted from Ciro Marino of Marino Ristorante in Hollywood. Rose water and orange blossom water are available at Middle Eastern and specialty food stores.

6 tablespoons ( 3/4 stick) butter, softened

9 1/2 ounces graham crackers (about 17 whole), divided

5 pounds ricotta, preferably Polly-O

4 ounces ( 1/3 cup plus 1 1/2 tablespoons) sour cream

3 generous cups (12 ounces) powdered sugar, plus extra for sprinkling

1 1/2 teaspoons finely diced candied lemon peel

1 teaspoon orange zest

2 teaspoons lemon zest

1/4 teaspoon rose water

1/2 teaspoon orange blossom water

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla

2 large eggs

1. Heat the oven to 450 degrees and place a rack in the lowest part of the oven. With your fingers, butter the bottom and sides of a 10-inch springform pan. Use all the butter; you will have a fairly thick coating. Finely grind 7 1/2 graham crackers in a food processor, careful not to over-process to a paste. Pour the crumbs into the pan, shaking and turning the pan to coat all surfaces well (the remaining crumbs will form a thicker layer on the bottom of the pan).

2. In the bowl of a stand mixer (or in a large bowl if using a hand mixer), combine the ricotta, sour cream, sugar, lemon peel, zests, rose water, orange blossom water and vanilla. On low speed, gradually combine all the ingredients. Switch to high speed and beat until thoroughly combined, scraping the sides of the bowl as you go.

3. Add both eggs and mix, first at low speed and then high speed, scraping down the sides of the bowl, just until the ingredients are combined. Be careful not to over-mix.

4. Using a large spoon, drop the batter into the pan, starting in the center and working your way out to the edges so that the crumbs do not get mixed into the batter. Smooth the batter to the edges of the pan, using the spoon to form an even layer.

5. Finely grind the remaining crackers, and spread the crumbs evenly over the top of the cake.

6. Center the cake pan on a baking sheet. Place the sheet in the oven and bake 8 to 10 minutes until the graham cracker topping is golden brown. Cover the top of the cake with foil and continue to bake until the cake has risen (including the center) about an inch over the sides of the pan, an additional 40 to 55 minutes depending on the oven. Rotate the cake after 20 minutes for even baking. Carefully remove the risen cake and cool (still on the cookie sheet) to room temperature; this will take a few hours.

7. Refrigerate the cake overnight before serving. Just before serving, dust the top of the cake with a light sprinkling of powdered sugar.

Each serving: 504 calories; 18 grams protein; 39 grams carbohydrates; 1 gram fiber; 31 grams fat; 19 grams saturated fat; 124 mg. cholesterol; 235 mg. sodium.

Recipe by Amy Scattergood, adapted from Ciro Marino of Marino Ristorante in Hollywood. Rose water and orange blossom water are available at Middle Eastern and specialty food stores.

Amy Scattergood is a regular contributor to the L.A. Times and is the author of  Old-fashioned cheesecakes without all the trappings. Ms. Scattergood can be reached via email at amy.scattergood@latimes.com

Noelle Carter is the Kitchen Manager for the L.A. Times. Leave messages for Ms. Carter or Chat with her live at The Daily Dish, her daily blog.

Recipes From Around The Web

 By Kathleen Daelemans

     Who doesn’t love a great recipe? Who has hours of free time to devote to the hunt? Since you guys are busy, and I’m immersed in food and cooking, recipes and research all the time, I’m happily stepping up. I stumble upon so many really great recipes when I’m surfing the net for assignments and inspiration, it’s all I can do to keep myself from screaming, I’m On Top of the World, at the top of my lungs all day long.

     Don’t you just want to call everyone you know when you find a really great bargain in a store or a really great deal online? It’s the same for me with recipes. There’s nothing I love more than discovering recipes that inspire me to drop everything and cook. They have to sound really great; Zuni Café great, Foreign Cinema great, Chez Panisse really great.

     Before I invest an ounce of energy, the recipes must past my stress test. Is the recipe built around naturally healthy ingredients? If the recipe is higher in calories, can I easily re-work it to slash the calories per serving? Is the ingredient list yardstick long? Have I at least heard of all of the ingredients? Can I afford them?  Are they lining the shelves at Piggly Wiggly? Is the recipe going to take half an afternoon to prepare? Yes answers and I'm headed to the test kitchen. I make no promises about how often I'll post great

    

Will These Recipes Make Me Fat?

     The most popular complaints I hear from people trying to lose weigh aret; the food is boring, my husband wants meat every night, my kids won’t eat anything accept hot dogs, pizza, spaghetti and chicken nuggets. My reply is always the same; you don’t have to eat diet food to reach your health and weight loss goals. My Mother’s advice is always the same, “If you kids didn’t like what I was serving, I reminded you how many hours it was until breakfast. As far as I know, you all survived.”

     When you first start out to improve your health and or get your weight to a level that you and your doctor have discussed as being ideal for your health status, age, height, and activity level, it’s downright challenging to figure out ways to cut calories, sugar, salt and fat from everyday favorite foods and weekly menus. Instead of focusing on every meal as being "perfect", concentrate on making the numbers work out in a 24 hour period, over your week and throughout the month. Work all-you-can-eat veggies and side salads into every meal, exercise regularly and you can have your cake and be fit too!

 
Georgeanne Brennan’s
Oven Roasted Prunes
Wrapped with Pancetta

 This recipe seems the perfect accopaniment to a wintertime meal of Pan Seared Pork Tenderloin and Mashed Sweet Potatoes (from my first book, Cooking Thin with Chef Kathleen, 200 Easy Recipes for Healthy Weight Loss or for another favorite Pan Seared Pork with Fruit Chutney. I can see also see serving these delicious Pancette Wrapped Prunes at an impromptu cocktail party, a gathering of friends around a crackling fire.

I stumbled upon the recipe in the Food Section of a San Francisco Paper. It's an excerpt from an article Singing Salumi's Praises. Hardly the kind of article you'd expect to find a recipe that would fit into a healthy diet. Precisely my point for creating, Recipes From Around the Web. The recipe calls for real blue cheese and real pancetta! Ms. Brennan includes the nutritional values for her recipe so you know right off the bat that 3 pieces per person will cost you 135 calories. Cut it back to two and you’re looking at a mere 90 calories per serving or 45 calories per piece. Not bad for a bacon fix.

Serve this with 3 ounces of pounded pour tenderloin (139) calories and there’s plenty of room for plain mashed sweet potatoes (about 128 calories per mashed half cup) and a great garden salad with low calorie dressing.

 Oven-Roasted Prunes Wrapped with Pancetta

Makes 24 -- Serves 8

People love the sweet-salty combination of this appetizer. You can substitute bacon for the pancetta, if you want an even more intense taste.

    * 24 pitted prunes
    * 3 ounces soft blue cheese
    * 3 ounces thin-sliced pancetta, cut into 1 1/2-inch lengths

Instructions: Preheat a broiler. Stuff each prune with about 1/2 teaspoon cheese. Wrap with a piece of pancetta and fasten with a toothpick.

Place the prunes on a baking sheet and broil until the pancetta is lightly crisped, turning once, about 5 minutes. Too long under the broiler and the cheese will melt and ooze out.

Per serving: 135 calories, 4 g protein, 16 g carbohydrate, 7 g fat (3 g saturated), 15 mg cholesterol, 348 mg sodium, 2 g fiber.

Georgeanne Brennan is an award-winning Northern California cookbook author and freelance writer. E-mail her at food@sfchronicle.com. Her most recent book is "A Pig in Provence" (Chronicle Books, 2007). Information about her cooking classes is available at georgeannebrennan.com.

Download Instant Cheer! 25 Days of Free Music From Amazon!

Download Instant Cheer!

Prepare for the holidays and download some instant cheer in Amazon's Holiday MP3 store where you'll find seasonal music in nearly every genre--from classics to contemporary; world to weird; and everything in between.

These days, I'm a big fan of  FREE! And more than ever, I'm all about ANYTHING that will help me silence the STRESS EATING carryout-call-girl living in my head. I used to look forward to watching television but even with DVR and Tivo I can't get away from all the glaring headlines filled with doom and gloom. All I can think about during the evening news is what I want to STUFF my face WITH to calm my nerves when it's over.

Sure as sugar cubes, I do NOT have visions of carrot sticks dancing in my head.

If I hear one more segment on how to pay off all my credit cards and get out of debt, I'll make enough COOKIE DOUGH to feed the free world and eat it all in one sitting! The only way I'm going to make it out of this real life recession alive and on top is to 'protect my process(es)'.

I don't want to navigate all of these super tough challenges, fat and unhappy. Fat begets fat in my house. The lazier and more complacent I get, the more rotund I get. Humpty Dumpty starts calling my pad his. So not cool.

On the First Day of Christmas My True Love Gave to Me...

Amazon's giving away 25 days of free music from now until Christmas. I'm giving myself a mind-body rehab coupon book for the 12 days of Christmas. What? Don't you remember making coupon books when you were a kid? And didn't you love, love, love thinking them up with your Mom and coloring all over them?

On the 12 Days of Christmas, Your Inner True Love Gave to You...

1. Slow down.

2. "Just say no" to family and friends when saying yes will make you behave badly.

3. Rehab your "well stocked pantry".

4. Speak of chapters in your life weighing heavy on your soul in the past tense.

5. Repeat after me: I will no longer sabotage my success.

6. Honor your bodies need for rest and restorative sleep. 

7. Exercise for health and healing as opposed to exercising yourself to total exhaustion.

8. Declare technology time outs.

9. Eat more vegetables. 

10. Write more. It's freeing.

11. Schedule commerce free play dates. Money isn't everything.

12. Be still. And listen.

Feed Your Mind, Feed the Hungry

By Kathleen Daelemans

I watched a clip on the Today show this morning of a woman making mud cakes. She was barefoot and barely clothed with only a pair of shorts and a small t-shirt, not nearly enough to protect her from the elements. Stooped over a makeshift "stove" (dusty cloths carefully laid out over the dirt ground beneath her) she methodically prepared the food that has become the staple of her diet; cakes made from a mixture of mud, butter, salt, oil and water.

Using the back of a small spoon, the woman smears circles of the clay-like batter into thick-ish pancakes about four inches in diameter. The cakes are ready to eat when the sun has dried them out to cracker-bread crisp. Each cappuccino-colored meringue looking cake serves as an individual meal; sometimes the only meal she and millions of other men, women and children like her, will have all day.

I sat, stunned into silence as I watched Anne and her guest, Josette Sheeran, the Director of The World Food Programme discuss World Hunger. Each night, “almost one billion people around the world go to bed hungry.” I thought about what it would be like to put my nieces to bed each night with hungry stomachs and send them off to school with no breakfast, no lunch and no shoes. Every single day of their lives.

And then I thought about how absurd it was to try and imagine my nieces going without. They were not born into a life of poverty. They won the baby lottery and were born here, in the United States of America, to hard working parents. God willing, they will likely never experience true hunger. But there are infants, toddlers and teens and Moms and Dads with distended stomachs who have never known what it's like to feel full. These children, our children, God’s children, are no less deserving than my beautiful girls.

 

To whom much is given, much is expected

If you are reading this, you are among those to whom much has been given. You are sitting at a computer in a room with a chair and a desk and electricity. Even if you are in a library because you do not own a computer, even if you have a credit card bill or two or three charged to the limit, you are blessed and you are rich.

You will not sleep outside tonight. You will not have to beg or scavenge for your next meal. You will not give your only pair of shoes or your only coat to one of your children and go without yourself. You will not wake up with "no way out" and no social services to see you through difficult times. Through the luck of the draw and hard work, you have been spared. To whom much is given, much is expected.

Feed Your Mind and Feed Those in Need

During Anne’s interview, Ms. Sheeran described how one person has made a big difference. His website http://www.freerice.com has (so far) resulted in 850 Billion Grains of Rice being distributed through the The World Food Programme to those in need.

The site is dedicated to feeding young minds and filling hungry stomachs. Visitors are encouraged to answer multiple-choice questions on a variety of topics. “For each answer you get right, we donate 20 grains of rice through the UN World Food Programme to help end hunger.” My six year old niece and I spent a half hour on the site playing word definition games, guessing the capitals of countries we’ve never heard of and identifying the artists of famous paintings.

We had an absolute ball. And we both learned a lot. The most extraordinary gift that came out of the time we spent together was watching her self esteem rise with every bowl of rice she earned for the children, that in her words and in her heart and soul, were “just like me, Auntie Kathy”. The gratitude in her eyes for having the opportunity to make a difference and to help those in need was truly humbling.

  “Many hands make light work”

 Absolutely everyone has  the freedom, the ability and the  means to make a difference. If you  want to help abolish mudcakes from the diets of people in need, go to http://www.freerice.com and play! Spread the word and spread the wealth. My niece and I earned 1820 grains of rice, just over 18 bowls! Now, we’re challenging you and yours to a rice-off!

I asked Maya what we should give out as the prize to the person who earns the most grains of rice, "Whoever earns the most grains of rice wins a huge rainbow in their heart, Auntie Kathy". Of course they do! "And please send pictures if your kitty sits on your lap (while you play).”

We Need You! 

In an effort to explore contributing on an even greater level, I’ve sent an email to Ms. Sheeran (Director of the World Food Program). I believe the culinary community (those who love to cook and those who love to eat) is a logical place to turn, to help end hunger. Obviously, there are many programs geared toward the homeless and hungry that many of us currently volunteer for, but I’m betting my next bar of chocolate there’s more that we can do. This is where you, the enthusiastic, resourceful and creative visionaries that you are, can help make more of a difference too.

As you well know, raising money usually entails community events, extravagant galas and WOW factor gimmicks. People like to have fun and they  certainly enjoy being entertained when they're parting with their hard earned money.

So please, put your chef’s toque on and send us all of your ideas (and pictures). Post them here or drop us a line:  kd@chefkathleen.com. The assignment: If you were the PR director for the The World Food Programme and you had 100 chefs willing to lend their “celebrity” to raise money for your organization, how would you utilize their talents to raise the most amount of money possible? We can’t wait to hear from you!

For more information on how you can help, log on to The World Food Programme's, How to Help Page.

Culinary In Vogue; Food Bites in the News...

Delish Dish

    It seems the fastest way to the White     House  is through the revolving kitchen         doors. The candidates and their wives can't   get enough of the Food Network stars (past  or present, Moi Included). Juliette Rossant,  the creator and author of the award winning  blog, Super Chef is keeping close tabs on  the culinary adventures of the candidates.

In her latest piece, Michelle Obama and Paula Deen: Laying It On Thick, Ms. Rossant spills the beans on Paula Deen's red, white and blue, high profile guests. Turns out Cindy McCain, Michelle Obama and Sara Palin have all taped recent episodes with the Queen of Butter and Bliss. 

                          

Ms. Rossant is the author of Super Chef, The Making of the Great Modern Restaurant Empires.        

 "In Super Chef, veteran journalist Juliette Rossant takes you  on an unprecedented tour inside the business of the food business, one of the world's most glamorous -- and little-known -- industries.

You catch glimpses of them everywhere: on television, in tabloid gossip columns pictured at glitzy parties with Hollywood stars and power brokers, in national magazine stories about their latest business projects. You buy their products at your local supermarket or online, or maybe even stay at their hotels. Traditional chefs may have stayed in the kitchen and rarely ventured into the public eye, but a growing number of today's top chefs are utilizing skills seldom taught in cooking school -- trading anonymity for celebrity and rising to build culinary empires.

Juliette Rossant goes behind the scenes with these new moguls to reveal the key ingredients that go into making a Super Chef. Culinary talent remains the base component, but today's Super Chef must be a whole lot more -- equal parts entrepreneur, realtor, fundraiser, publicist, and media star."

The Side Dish

  Read a review of Getting Thin and Loving Food, 200 Easy 
 Recipes to Take You Where You Want to Be, at Ms. Rossant's 
 Blog SuperChefBlog.com

Dessert

It's hard to digest juicy food news without a scrumptious dessert. I was recently given a one serving package (I jest) of the best darn licorice I've ever tasted. Despite it's New Zealand roots, it arrives perfectly moist and homemade-fresh.

RJ's Natural Licorice is made from the root of the Flowering Snow Pea Plant. Who knew? These soft and chew bites are loaded with that anise-y licorice taste licorice-lovers crave. The family has achieved the perfect balance of flavor and texture and they're keeping it a secret. But thankfully, they've "bottled" the magic and they're offering up their very fine licorice in gourmet stores everywhere. 

If the calories serve as a deterrant (about 340 calories per serving), check out the many health benefits of licorice root listed on RJ's official website. Among them:

Nearly two-thirds of all traditional formulas in Chinese Medicine contain Licorice.

Hippocrates in the 4th Century BC recommended licorice for the treatment of ulcers.

The major active ingredient glycrrhizin was isolated and shown to have a cortisone-like action which explains its remarkable ability to reduce inflammation and speed the healing of ulcerated tissue.

Licorice can be used to counteract the side effects of steroid treatments and to prevent joint degenration. 

I don't believe there's a finer licorice out there but I'll passionately test anyone's brand. RJ's Natural Licorice is available Zingerman's.com, $9.00 for a 300 gram bag (price does not include shipping or handling).

The Vegetable Orchestra

By Kathleen Daelemans

There's more than one way to work in your five a day!

Worldwide and one of a kind, the Vegetable Orchestra performs on instruments made of fresh vegetables. The utilization of various ever refined vegetable instruments creates a musically and aesthetically unique sound universe.

The Vegetable Orchestra was founded in 1998. Based in Vienna, the Vegetable Orchestra plays concerts in all over the world.

There are no musical boundaries for the Vegetable Orchestra. The most diverse music styles fuse here - contemporary music, beat-oriented House tracks, experimental Electronic, Free Jazz, Noise, Dub, Clicks'n'Cuts - the musical scope of the ensemble expands consistently, and recently developed vegetable instruments and their inherent sounds often determine the direction.

Fresh Vegetable Gardens Coming to a Vacant Lot Near You

By Kathleen Daelemans

As much as I enjoy sitting in my garden on sunny days beneath the wide reaching arms of my favorite white birch tree with my laptop, writing about all things food, it's not a luxury I can afford very often. Besides, my cat Fujin makes it hard to get at the keypad.

Like a freezing cold New Yorker briskly navigating snow and ice covered wintry sidewalks trying to keep warm by making it a point to walk in the path of the heat billowing up from the city's belly through storm grates, underground stairways and the subway itself, Fujin likes to think of my laptop as a heating pad designed for cats. He just can't resist the makings for a great nap.

Even though Fujin's rack is the Temperpedic of all cat beds, it's just not for him. Who needs an over-sized, overstuffed, warm and cozy place to lay your head, featuring extra padding, 100% Egyptian cotton sheets, matching Kitty duvet and European pillow shams when you have the luxury of stretching out on your Mom's new Mac-book Pro?

Maybe the Dog Eats Your Homework...

But my cat eats mine. Precisely why I'm the slacker of all bloggers. It takes lots of time to update the blog so I've come up with a great solution. I'm going to post interesting articles and videos I discover in the course of my research for the legitimate food writing I do. Since most sights now allow sharing, this is an opportunity for me to scan the pages of the best food sections out there and bring you food and health stories worthy of your attention.

I may or may not post commentary with the pieces I put up. The whole point of sharing articles is so I can bring you more information, more often without the enormous time commitment the writing I procrastinate daily, actually requires.

I'm jazzed to go and have chosen a wonderful piece from the Wall Street Journal that discusses the opportunities we as American citizens, enjoying the privilege of freedom and liberty for all, have to stand up and do something about the empty lots polka dotting cities across America.

Watch the video and let it sink in. And later, with friends, over tea and scones (or cosmos and blue-cheese burgers) explore together in spirited conversation the impact a magnificent vegetable garden in your neighborhood could mean to your children, families and friends.

Strawberries Fields and Little White Pineapple Lies

By Kathleen Daelemans

I have four quarts of strawberries left in my refrigerator from the weekend. I had twelve all told on Friday. I went strawberry picking with my thirteen year old niece, Erin and her good friend Nicole. They were here for Auntie Camp.

Auntie Camp takes place at my year-round "summer home" just about every weekend of the year. And on weekdays in the summer. Some would call my place a lake retreat. Because it's one street up from a lake. And there's a private beach. And a boat club. And a private community center. But it's all very humble in an authentic Leave-it-to-Beaver summer camp kind of way. There's no golf club, no private dining room and no pool. In fact, there's nothing hoighty-toighty about our beach living.

We spend hours snorkeling in muddy waters looking for minnows. We jump off our dock into swaying seaweed and pretend we don't feel it. We take our paddle boat, the "Kona", on discovery voyages across the lake. We paddle up canals we're not invited to explore. We vote on people's backyards and where we'd like to live if money were no object.

On days we don't leave the dock, we bury each other in the sand and make volcanoes and of course, mud pies. When we're not at the lake, we're in the kitchen cooking or we're in pursuit of food. We like to eat. Because of their ages (13) we bake a lot. And make pancakes and pizza. And walk for Blizzards in the heat of the day.

How to Get Your Teenager To Cheerfully Go Strawberry Picking

Last week I got a postcard in the mail from the Longs Family Farm, "my" local u-pick farm. The family sends post cards in advance of every new harvest. This week, the strawberries finally came in! No one loves strawberries more than I do except my niece Maya. She wasn't at Auntie Camp when the invitation to pick arrived, but Erin and Nicole were. I wasn't about to let two unpredictable teenagers ruin my favorite week of the year so as I was strategically serving them their favorite breakfast of peanut butter, chocolate chip, banana pancakes withreal maple syrup, I casually mentioned that we needed to "stop off" at the strawberry patch on the way to the beach.

"The strawberry patch! There-isn't-a-strawberry-patch-on-the-way-to-the-beach!", Erin roared. "Of coarse there isn't", I said as I served the last pancake, "But I have stories due. I want to take pictures of you and Nicole in the strawberry patch and write about strawberries. Besides, it's your Daddy's birthday and heloves Strawberries."

Erin likes strawberries about as much as she likes cleaning her room but she's always been Daddy's little girl so she was in. As though it were her idea, "I know! I'll pick Daddy a basket of strawberries for his birthday. He'll like that very much!" Yes he will, I agreed.

Knowing she could change her mind in a nanosecond, I went off to find my camera, extra batteries, sunscreen, wide brimmed hats and three bottles of ice-cold water. "Throw your dishes in the sink when you're done. I'll wash them when we come back". I had the car packed and the cabin cooled to a luxurious 70 degrees by the time they'd taken their list bite of pancakes.

At the sound of their dishes crashing into one another as they tossed them into my kitchen sink as though they were made of indestructible plastic and not fine the French porcelain I'd worked my whole life for, I called out to them, "I'm in the car".

Little White (Pineapple) Lies

"How long do we have to stay Auntie Kathy?" Not long, I promised as we buckled up and began our journey. And I meant it. I knew that to have any chance of getting them to come along on future outings (morel hunting, my annual, great wild trillium pursuit etc...) I had to earn their trust. I'll be quick. I used to work on a farm you know. In their most horrified, exaggerated, teenage, grossed out, high pitched voices, "Ewwww, you did???"

"Yes. I did. In Hawaii. After work, I'd drive up to the farm that supplied all the produce for my restaurant and work the fields. I was usually asked to harvest the baby lettuces. It was really quite simple but no one wanted to do it because you had to cut the lettuces, separate them by variety and then wash them in giant bathtubs..."

"Bathtubs, Aunt Kathy? You mean like real bathtubs?"

"Yes. Robbie (my farmer) collected all sorts of old fashioned bathtubs and placed them in the shed or what he called grand central at the farm. It was an open air shed with no walls. It had a giant canvas top that would protect us from the rain but not much else. It's where all the produce was brought to at the end of the day and packaged up for the restaurants. The shed had lots of refrigerators for keeping the produce cool overnight. There were white ones, green ones and even an apricot colored one. Robbie got them from garage sales, junk yards and he even found a couple on the side of the road.

When the produce was washed and ready to be delivered, it was stored it in the refrigerators overnight. This way, it stayed nice and cold and fresh until the drivers arrived to pick it up in the morning to take it to the island chefs".

"What did Robbie do with all those bathtubs?"

"The lettuces had to be washed, dried and packaged separately. I couldn't just throw them all willy-nilly into one big bag when I was harvesting them in the fields. Using a sickle...

"What's a sickle?" Erin asked

It's a very sharp knife used for cutting produce. The blade is half moon shaped making it easier to gather the food as you cut it. It's especially useful for harvesting lettuces. I cut the lettuces one variety at a time and place each kind in their own bag or box. When I couldn't possibly carry anymore, I brought the lot up to the shed and drew them each a bath."

This had the girls in stitches of course. "Did you use Mr. Bubbles, Auntie Kathy?"

"Did you have to clean behind their ears?", Nicole asked.

"No! But I had to keep things very organized. When I came up from the fields I had to work quickly so the lettuces didn't wilt. I poured the leaves into their respective tubs which were filled with ice cold water. I went from bath to bath gently swishing the lettuces around in the water with my hands until all the sand fell to the bottom of the tubs. Next, very gently, so as not to bruise any leaves, I had to scoop the leaves up and out of the water and place them in the base of industrial size salad spinners.

I shook the spinners (which looked a lot like giant colanders) to get as much of the excess water off as possible. Next, I spun the leaves through several cycles in the salad spinners until they were as dry as the machines could get them. Finally, I poured the lettuces out onto double layers of bed sheets which Robbie also collected from heaven knows where..."

"Garage sales, junk yards and the side of the road?" Erin asked

"Well, let's hope he got all the sheets from sanitary sources. They were all very clean", I assured her, "and he had washers and dryers at the farm too. Now,they probably came from garages sales, junk yards, and the side of the road. Robbie was always very resourceful. He hated to part with money".

I put a box fan up to each table of lettuce and turned them on to medium. If I turned them up to high, they'd blow the baby lettuces all over the farm. And there I'd be, running around chasing flying baby lettuce leaves praying Robbie wouldn't come up to the shed and catch me.

The box fans gave the lettuces a final drying they really needed. It was a fairly quick process. As the top layer of lettuces dried, I lifted them off the pile and put them into bags. When the bags weighed five pounds, I marked them for sale and stored them in the refrigerators. They were finally ready for market.

"I can see why nobody wanted lettuce duty Aunt Kathy".

"Me too", Nicole chimed in.

I never considered it work. In fact, I'd give anything to get a shift on the farm today. It was magical. The farm was right across the street from pineapple fields that overlooked the ocean. Green sea turtles swam below sea cliffs where mama grey whales passed by with their young every spring. You don't see that every day! We used to climb the fence, borrow a few fresh pineapple and go sit on the edge of the cliffs and watch the whales.

"Aunt Kathy! You can't borrow pineapple from someone else's field!"

Okay, you're right. Sometimes we'd leave a basket of mangos from Robbie's farm in exchange.

"You're fibbing."

You're right, I sighed. And to think! I used to be able to get this stuff right past them when they were younger.

Are We THERE Yet?

We pulled up to the farm. It was just as I remembered it. Smack in the middle of suburbia, a delicious strawberry field that went on forever. Rows and rows and rows of strawberries racing from one end of the parking lot straight off into the sunset.  There were grandmas and grandpas, moms and dads and kids of all ages, bums high in the air, feverishly picking strawberries as if their lives depended on it. I couldn'twait to get started!

We parked and went up to the official strawberry-husk-ateers. Pick five baskets, get one free, we were told.  Great!, I said. We'll take six baskets.

"Six baskets!", Erin cried. "We'll never be able to go the beach again!"

"How are we going to pick six whole baskets of strawberries?" Nicole asked. "I have to go home tomorrow."

I promise you, Nicole, you'll make your curfew. Clearly these kids didn't have Saturday morning chores. Not only did I have to clean toilets, mow the lawn and rake leaves when I was I kid, but I couldn't watch a single cartoon until my work passed my father's inspections.

And P.S. we certainly didn't get an allowance for doing chores. We got three square meals a day, clean sheets and pillows once a week and we had to put them on ourselves. We didn't get any new toys and we absolutely didn't get any of the cool toys that were advertised on T.V. Just asking for one was asking for trouble.

It's a Strawberry Christmas (in June)

But we did get to go to U Pick Farms with my Mom. And I'll never forget it. I'll never forget any of our outings to U Pick Farms. I don't think anyone ever forgets their first trip to a strawberry field or a raspberry patch. There's nothing like it. My Mom used to let us run wild. She gave us our own baskets and let us go off on our own. The only rule was she had to be able to see us from wherever she was. She didn't care how many berries we ate, just as long as she could see us.

She taught us to ingratiate ourselves to the farmers and to ask them lots of questions about the strawberries. Ask how many varieties have been planted and which ones are sweeter. Ask them if any of the berries are organic or tart or if one variety makes better jam, pie, crisp or ice-cream than another.

"Scan the fields before you choose a spot. Go the opposite of where the crowds are. Look for plants that are in perfect shape. If the leaves are at all wilted or have a look of being walked on, they've probably been gone through". You should be able to see lots and lots of strawberries on the bush when you're standing in front of the plants, especially at the beginning of the season. If you don't, move on.

Pick strawberries in an area where you can harvest lots of strawberries off of each bush so you can crouch down in a row and pick from two plants in front of you, two beside you and two just behind you. By the time you've gone through the six plants, you'll have a lot of strawberries in your basket and you won't have had to travel very far at all.

Choose berries that are firm and free of any soft spots whatsoever. Do not be prejudice against small berries, sometimes they're the very sweetest. Whatever you do, stop picking before it becomes a chore and before you burn out. Strawberry picking with those you love is meant to be an activity you enjoy, a memory you cherish and a custom you pass on.

An Edible Schoolyard Near You? It's Up to You!

By Kathleen Daelemans

As a 40-something, schooled Chef, the miracle of this post is that I was actually successful at navigating the inner-workings of my blog well enough to post my very first video clip. In 16 hours 37 minutes and 4 seconds. Flat. I hope to improve my time. Greatly. And I'd like to be able to skip the part where I've proof read the piece so many times I can recite it by heart, and after a marathon OCD session, I've gotten the photographs spaced exactly the way I want them only to watch the whole post disappear into cyberspace with irritating messages like, "Firefox cannot find page. Please try again later" or "Typepad doesn't give two jalapenos how long you've been working on your post, Egg Queen. We erased it. Neh, neh, neh, neh, neh!"

I'll be scouring the web looking for juicy cooking videos, scrumptious kitchen gossip and great interviews with great chefs to post on the site. If you stumble upon some must see cooking or health videos, send me an email. In the meantime, enjoy a few sage words from one of the country's greatest advocates for children's health, Ms. Alice Waters, Chef and Owner of Chez Panisse located in Berkeley, California.

Click here for more information on The Chez Pannise Foundation and the work they're doing with The Edible Schoolyard. To learn more about Chez Panisse, the restaurant or to make reservations and to get a peak at recent menus, visit their website at chezpanisse.com

 

Blogs I Love, Food I Love, Books I Love and How to Procrastinate Deadlines

by Kathleen Daelemans

Blogs I love:

Author, Dorie Greenspan's. Her latest book is, Baking, From My Home to Yours.

Why do I love Dories Blog? Because in times of stress (or boredom or plain old fashioned envy) I can live vicariously through her.

And...Every Single Recipe She Creates, Works.

And Every Single recipe of hers I've tried, I LOVE.

In particular (this week) and especially, her recipe for, Pierre Herme's Most Extraordinary French Lemon Tart (which she recently "re-thunk" on her blog) so If you're going to attempt it (and I highly recommend that you do) read her Lemon Tart Crib Notes before you prepare the tart for the first time.
                                                                                        Personally, I didn't have any problems with the recipe which is saying a lot because I'm definitely the William Hung of baking. My crust came out beautifully. The curd was easy enough and there were no Kat-astrophies in the kitchen (except when the last piece disappeared).

A McCain and Daelemans Family Favorite Dish

By Kathleen Daelemans

What's worse than having it reported in the National news that one of your recipes was allegedly stolen word-for-word by the McCain camp?

Having Keith Olbermann credit the recipe to Rachel Ray during his Worst Person in the World segment on live television.

What a Difference a Few Daffodils Make

By Kathleen Daelemans

What a difference a few daffodils make. Two springs ago, I was shooting a PBS special in my home and taking care of my best friend and longtime sous-chef, Miho Mizuno who was dying of colon cancer. She was 44. We shared the same birthday, a love of food, and custody of an obese, non-English speaking kitten.

The Easter Bunny Can Read Maps!

Easter Side Dishes Invented by a Six Year Old

By Kathleen Daelemans

We celebrate every Easter at my sister Carol's. I still look forward to the holiday as though I were five years old. My mom used to dress my sister and I up like post cards. She made our dresses from scratch. Not because it was the "thing" to do. And not because we didn't have a lot of money. She did it because she loved us. And we didn't have a lot of money. And it was the thing to do.

 

We had little white gloves and purses to match and hats that went with our dresses. I'm sure the only reason we made it home from church with all of our accessories was because my grandmother (the original Swiffer) sat with us.

We weren't allowed to have any Easter candy until after church and only then, if we'd behaved throughout mass. As soon as we arrived home, the hunt began. We ran from room to room looking for hidden treasures. Finding a basket with your name painted on an Egg gently nestling among the grasses meant it was yours.

                                                                                                      
The Easter bunny made elaborate baskets tied with real silk satin bows. They contained hand painted eggs, solid chocolate bunny rabbits, miniature toys, assorted jelly beans and baby stuffed bunnies.  We were always allowed to eat candy before breakfast on Easter. A tradition passed on to my little nieces today.

Before every holiday we have an Auntie sleepover. My nieces and I get together and celebrate together before the holiday so we get to enjoy quality time together before all the chaos begins. We'll have our Auntie Easter sleepover this week followed by our family potluck Easter Holiday meal on Sunday.

Lemon, Chicken & Orzo Soup, 2 Firemen, a Chat & a Checkup

By Kathleen Daelemans

I wish I could be one of those bloggers who pens brilliant, timely, comedic posts twice daily. I'm not. I'm lucky if I can eek out a post once a week.

Too bad it doesn't count that I compose hysterically funny blogs every single waking moment of my life. I even dream them and wake myself up to write down Nora-Ephron-hilarious (just ask me) ramblings on sticky notes. Most of them end up under my bed tangled in lemon size fur balls (my cat spins daily).


What's a Busy Girl-y Girl Like Me To Do in Such a Filthy Dirty House?

I have 96-year-old housekeepers that come in twice a month. They don't clean. They just come by for coffee. A chat. And a check. I clean like someone who can’t afford real housekeepers before they ever arrive.

With the speed of a Grand Prize Winner who has 60 seconds to clear the shelves in an Electronic Emporium, I wash the linens, clean the windows inside and out, do every last load of laundry, vacuum all the rugs, clean the appliances, scrub the basement floors, and remove every single item from every flat surface in the house (girls, you know what I’m talking about). And then poof! My scrumptious little Babushkas arrive.

Blondes are as Blondes do

The only way one can compose funny blogs consistently, is if one is, well, how shall I say this in a nice way without hurting my feelings? I'm very sensitive you know (and have been known to walk around with self imposed and "gifted" labels for years.

In the interest of time (you have my fabulous Greek Lemon Chicken and Orzo Soup to make) I'll just come right out and say it, the only way to compose really funny blogs (that aren't forced, copied or created) is to be well, part, mostly or totally dumb (or special or a row short of a box Oreas), whatever you want to call it in some delicate, or not so delicate way.

This isn't news to me. My “delicate way”. I've come to accept it. Embrace it. Adore it. One can't be a Culinary Fashionista, a Diet Queen of Denial and up on the latest Carbon Monoxide News. How was I to know that if one goes to light ones gas fireplace for the first time ever in five years, and one goes to pull the vent-thingy open, that when given a choice between “O” or “C”, one should choose “O”?

This is not taught in school. One does not overhear anything having to do with messy fireplaces, shoot-hanging-down things, at nail salons. I chose “C” because “C” was closer. I lit the fire because it was a sunny, freezing cold Sunday and my friend Alice was coming over. We had plans to share a glass of wine and while away the afternoon flipping through all the new magazines.

Work till Three, Wine Club at Four, Make an Early Plane

What girl doesn’t love to pay above subscription rates (like 4 times the price) for the glitzy magazines and covet them until she gets a quiet moment to pour over them with her best friend? We pick out the hot new wardrobes we’ll never own and all the accessories. We choose an outfit for every imaginable occasion. Every.

And then we accessorize; from the main purse, to the weekend bag, the evening jewelry, to the office appropriate shoe. We obsess over every bauble, bracelet and bead. When we’re positively spent from our mad shopping spree, we read Dr. Phil’s advice out loud and try to reverse look up Carson Kressley’s phone number for Suzy Orman. It’s like this, "911, Carson can you help a sister out?"
She will survive this slight embarassment. And she will thank us one day.

Tropical Island Getaway for the Price of a Trip to the Emergency Room

I lit my fireplace, sat down at my dining room table and got to work. Before long, my living room became a tropical paradise. The humidity must have been 100%. My hair got that just-up-from-the-beach look. It was slightly curly in all the right places. The dew on my skin was scrumptious. I felt 10 years younger. I planned Mango smoothies for lunch and Mahi-Mahi with pineapple salsa for dinner and typed on.

An hour later, despite the 15-degree temperatures outside, I was drenched. I decided to put on something lighter than the three layers of clothing I had on. Summer was in the air.

Comfy in a fabulous, floral-print-on-fuchsia-background, long sleeve, terry cloth, beach cover up and flip flops, I was back in my chair faster than you can say Put-the-lime-in-the-coconut.

Twenty minutes later, I was light headed. Somehow, I’d forgotten to eat breakfast (I’d been feeling a bit nauseous all morning). An English muffin, a glass of juice and it was back to the keyboard.

Everything was going well until the lights went out. I opened my eyes and the first thing I saw was the touch pad of my computer and the back of my room, upside down. This is not a good perspective. It’s caused by a keyboard face-plant. I’m pretty sure I woke up the instant I landed.

And Make it a Kona Coffee Please

Must make a pot of coffee”, I mumbled on the way to the kitchen, “So late in the day?” I asked myself, “Whatever it takes”, I answered.
Never having fallen asleep on my keyboard before, I decided to pay attention to my skittish indoor cat who developed a sudden desire to be let outside. He’d been racing between the front and back doors for two hours straight.

I opened the front door. Before I could scoop down to pick up my cat and explain the playground rules, he was out the door and under a bush.

I must admit, the air came rushing into the house with tornado force. Or so it seemed. I stood in the doorway and basked in the fresh air like a haole1 with island fever. In fact, I took giant gulps of air. When the coffee pot sounded its alarm, I called in the cat. He was still under the bush. He refused to come.

I wasn’t in the mood to step out into the snow in my sparkly  Hibiscus hoodie and turquoise flip flops. But he flat out refused to come. Even when I resorted to my co-dependent Mom tactic, “Here’s an extra can of food today, pumpkin baby boo”. I couldn’t lure that cat into the house with the promise of a years’ worth of free Kitty Caviar.

It was then that I realized (subconsciously) that something might be amiss. I fired off an email to a fireman friend of mine:

To: DC
From: Kd
Subject: Poisoning my Cat

DC,

I started my gas fireplace for the first time this year. My indoor cat is acting strange. He ran between doors “asking to go out” all day and now he won’t come in. Do you think the residual gas could be making him sick?

Kathleen

Dan never did answer my email. Until the next day.

In the meantime. I drank the pot of coffee and got that sea-sick feeling. I became more and more light headed. The English muffin didn’t do it for me. But I assumed drinking a pot of coffee would make anyone light headed and nauseous.

I laid down on my living room floor intending to stay just “until the feeling passed”. It never passed. The cat never came back in. I had no energy to find him. By the time, my girlfriend came over, I felt like we’d already drank every bottle of wine I’d ever purchased and every bottle of wine that was ever given to me throughout my entire life.

I told her I had a terrible case of the flu and was calling the whole party off. She told me my house smelled like a gas explosion had gone off and that it needed some air. She immediately began opening doors and windows. She told me “something was wrong” and that I needed to get out of the house.

She made me get up and get out. I walked out side and grabbed my stubborn cat. Alice gave me a coat. We went to my neighbor’s house. Her husband is a big strong fireman. He knew immediately that I’d been inhaling carbon monoxide fumes for five hours. He knew that when I pulled “C” for Closed I should have pulled “O” for Open. He sent over a truck. I was given a crash course in, The Warning Signs of Carbon Monoxide Poisoning in the Home From Common Sources.

You wouldn’t believe the common everyday things that can make you sick; your gas fireplace all closed up and aimed at you for instance. Or your furnace and hot water heaters if they’re not running properly – something you can’t see with the naked eye. These appliances need to be scheduled for yearly check ups the same as any fire and carbon monoxide alarm. A better way to think of it, is to schedule the furnace’s annual physical for the same time you schedule yours. 

The fireman opened all my doors and windows and stayed until the readings in my house were zero. They insisted I go over to the hospital to get checked out. The treatment for mild carbon monoxide poisoning is to take a blood test to measure your levels and to breathe pure oxygen. I was very lucky. If Alice wasn’t on her way over, I was calling it a day. Who knows if I would have made my plane.

The fireman also made me sign a piece of paper stating I’d go out and get two new digital read Carbon Monoxide alarms for the house within the week. I kept my promise. Okay, now if I can just make them work. 

To find out more about carbon monoxide poisoning, prevention, safety and what kind of an alarm is best for you, click on:  Enviornmental Protection Agency's Safety Page.   

To make my totally scrumptious soup:

Lemon Chicken Soup with Orzo & Egg

Skill level: one star

Prep Time: 15 minutes. All you gotta do is shred chicken and squeeze and zest a lemon.

Cook Time: 15 minutes
Ingredients

8 cups homemade or low sodium chicken broth

8 oz. boneless skinless chicken breast

coarse salt and cracked black pepper to taste

1/2 cup orzo

2 eggs lightly beaten

juice of two large lemons and their zest

1/2 pound baby spinach, washed and dried and cut into chiffonade

     Place chicken broth in a large stockpot and bring to a boil, add chicken and reduce to a steady simmer.

Poach until chicken breast is just done, about 6-8 minutes. Remove chicken breast to a plate to cool.

Add a cup or two of water if the chicken broth has reduced down too much (could happen if you’re multi-tasking like crazy).

     Bring the liquid back up to a boil, add the orzo. Reduce heat to a strong steady simmer and let orzo cook until al dente, about 7-8 minutes.

     When orzo, is firm to the tooth, add the eggs in a skinny steady stream, while whisking vigorously.

     Add the lemon juice and zest. Turn off the heat. Add the spinach. Taste and adjust the seasonings. Serve immediately.

________________________

1. Haole. The Hawaiian term for Foreigner. When you're in Hawaii, the locals often refer to visitors from the mainland as Haoles. Eh Haole, you forget your sun tan lotion or what? You look like someone spray painted you red.









   

15 Minute Miracle Suit Meals: Ham & Cheese & Asparagus Frittata

 
by Kathleen Daelemans

Sometimes the only retaliation for dreary winter days is a thoroughly delicious (albeit premature)  spring supper. I like to have a Spring Gala every year. Several spring galas. The smaller the better. It's really just a matter of family and friends gathering around the table one upping each other over new recipes.

Any minute now, the stalls at the Farmers Markets will begin to plump and fill out with new offerings and the frenzy to summer will begin. Out will come the summer clothes, tropical colored beach bags, life jackets and sandcastle toys.

My Secret Garden

The best season of the year is almost here again. It begins with anticipating what will become of the garden. I can hardly wait to see what will come back. Will the crocuses return? Did the Daffodils make it? Will there be more tulips this year? Will my hydrangea bloom?  Will my climbing roses make an appearance? I didn't kill everything again did I? Surely something will come back. Will I get my deck built?

Before I can finish cleaning out my garden beds and accomplishing everything I want to get done in my cottage-y garden, the days will be hot and my attention will turn to the lake, just a block away. The call comes like this. I'll be in the garden, transferring a bush or a small tree, or tending to something I should have done three season ago. I'll be hot and tired. My muscles will be sore to the bone (from bagging four leaves). I'll have a rake in my hand or some tool. A tiny breeze will race up from the lake, pass through my hair (desperately in need of a cut and color) and continue up the street. I'll lift my head up and look towards the water. Gardening season is over. Miracle suit where are you?

Countdown to Can't-Hide-My-Blubber-Under-My-Sweaters-Season 

Lake breezes are too intoxicating to deny. I'll end up taking out my paddle boat, dragging my laptop to the beach or jumping off the end of the dock for a quick plunge but mostly all of the above every day I'm home in the summer.

But it's still winter and we're expecting six inches of snow tomorrow. In fact, here in Michigan the temperature dropped 40 degrees in the last eight hours. It was 50 yesterday and it's 10 today. With the wind-chill factor, they say it feels like 20 below.

You know what that means? Comfy clothes, elastic waistbands and Mallomars for everyone or ...it's perfect frittata weather. Hmm...tempting. Very tempting...Do love Mallomars. And ice cream. And I have really good cheese and crackers I could have. Or I could have toast. Or an English muffin with peanut butter. Or I could get carry out. No one would know. I'll eat way better tomorrow. And I'll pump up the cardio.

But can't-hide-my-blubber-under-my-sweaters-season is just right around the corner. I need to tone up. I don't eat enough vegetables. This frittata has loads because I actually have spinach and chard in the house. And really, how long does it take to make fancy scrambled eggs?

I can't survive another summer feeling like one of the dancing Hippos in Fantasia. The cute ones wearing lacy tu-tus and pink ballet slippers? Yeah. No. Not going back there. Having the frittata.

Ham, Cheese, and Asparagus Frittata

Tip
Get your ham from the deli counter. Ask for extra-thick slices you can cube.

Morph
Add freshly shelled peas in the spring or frozen peas at any time of the year.

Cook Once, Eat Twice
The recipe calls for a pound of cooked asparagus. If you slice the asparagus thin enough, you can cook it right in the pan with a little oil. I’ve used both roasted asparagus and leftover steamed. When you’re making asparagus this week for another recipe or side dish, cook some extra to throw into this frittata.

Up the Nutrition: Add chopped fresh spinach or sauteed Swiss Chard, beet or turnip greens to the frittata at the point you add the ham.

Prep Time: 20 Casual Minutes

Cook Time: 13-15 Minutes

Serves 4 to 6

Ingredients

8 large egg whites

2 large eggs

Coarse-grained salt and cracked black pepper

2 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil

1 pound asparagus, very thinly sliced

1/2 pound ham, cubed

4 cups coarsely chopped baby spinach

1/2 cup loosely packed grated cheese, such as extra-sharp white cheddar or

Parmigiana-Reggiano

Directions

Preheat broiler. In a large bowl, whisk together egg whites, eggs, and salt and pepper to taste. Set aside.

Heat olive oil in a 10-inch nonstick skillet with an ovenproof handle over medium-high heat. Add asparagus and cook, stirring often, until just done, 3 to 4 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Add ham and cook until heated through, about 1 minute.

Add egg mixture and spinach to pan. Using a heatproof spatula, slowly stir eggs in a figure-eight motion until just beginning to set at edges. Reduce heat to medium-low. Continue cooking, occasionally sliding spatula around edges of pan to allow raw egg to flow underneath, until frittata is set on bottom and almost set on top, about 4 minutes.

Sprinkle cheese over frittata and broil just until top is set and cheese is golden brown, 3 to 5 minutes. Serve hot or warm.

Baking in a Fit of Passion

By Kathleen Daelemans

I’m pretty sure I’m voting for
Hillary Clinton and it has everything to do with my Miss Daisy. What a dear. So polite was, this Miss Daisy-doesn't-need-a-driver, that she didn't even acknowledge my bumper was stuck fast onto hers when indeed it was, this last Saturday past, in the middle of mid-morning traffic.

It was nearly teatime. I was on my way home from the fabric store with my Mom. Of course I call her "my" Miss Daisy but I've never met her, even after the fact now. Everything happened so quickly. 

I was first in line in a left hand turn lane at a green light. I inched out a little as one is taught in drivers’ education school to do. So heavy was the traffic on this fine Saturday afternoon, that I never had the opportunity to make my turn.

In retrospect, perhaps there may have been a chance, or two, for me to make the turn, but so thoroughly engrossed in conversation over the pros and cons of making a new cape out of the $99 a yard, Emanuel Ungaro, barely purple, sugar plum, cashmere I had to pass on versus the much more affordable, yet equally delicious $25 a yard, Ellen Tracy, Heather Grey and (properly*) Whipped Cream White, double sided wool I chose, that I never saw the light go from yellow to red. So there I was, stuck in the middle of a very busy intersection. What’s a girl to do?

Da da-da-da

I sprung into action is what I did. I whipped out a sleeve of Thin Mints from my purse, offered a few to my mother and put on my Girl Scout thinking cap. With cars coming at me in all directions, I made my move.  I put my car into reverse and very, very carefully inched my truck back towards the car behind me. It was none other than (the famed about town) Miss Daisy’s Very Cherry Berry, Enchanted, Ruby Red, Flying, Driving, Time, Machine.

The Best Books (I'm hoping to read) in 2008

By Kathleen Daelemans

I’ve been waiting for Gayle King to call me for ever to tell me she needs to go over a few things. The call will go like something like this...

Fresh off the phone with you know who she'll buzz one of her own assistants, "Cindy, honey, it's Gayle, can you get Kathleen Daelemans on the phone, I've been meaning to call her for ages.

I'll be in my kitchen inventing a new dish that just happens to include every single favorite food of her childhood. The phone will ring. Ring ring. Ring ring. Of course I'll pick it up on the second ring.

"Hello?"
"Kathleen Daelemans?" her assistant will inquire.
"Who may I say is calling?" I'll ask.
"This is Cindy Handy for Ms. Gayle King. Is Ms. Daelemans in?"
"May I place you on hold? Ms. Daelemans is in the kitchen testing recipes," I'll say.

If Martha Stewart Was A Diet Coach

By Kathleen Daelemans

If Martha Stewart were a Diet Coach she'd advise you to start off the New Year by purchasing a shiny new treadmill. “Situate treadmill in Home Office, Living Room, Great Room or someplace visitors are sure to enjoy. Arrange matching and coordinating hand towels in nearby bathrooms. Bake a Dreamy Coconut Layer Cake to celebrate. Be sure to make miniature versions of the cake and place in handmade boxes for each of your guests to take home as a keepsake.€

There's nothing more gratifying than buying a shiny new treadmill in January unless you already own one. My home gym is filled with New Year's€™ Resolution exercise equipment I pick up around the first of every year. I've been adding to my collection for the past five years. Every piece is as sparkly and shiny and brand new smelling as the day it arrived. You don't have to spend a lot to get a lot either. One of my favorite pieces is my giant exercise ball. It takes up a lot of space and looks very gymnastic. I feel like a perfect 10 just looking at it.  

Cocoa, Wolford, M Missoni, Tiffany and Cosmopolitans or Stairmaster J, Your old Nikes and Gatorade?

Exercise time is like cocktail hour at my house. I look forward to working out with the same sense of anticipation and soon-to-be satisfied lust that I do drinking, eating and shopping. My gym has a full bar, racks of clothing and cash registers. MTV Cribs is coming in March.

For real?
For real.
For real?

No. And lest you think I'€™m living like Oprah and friends, let me give you a tour of my private gym. It's tastefully bathed in coats of crisp white paint. It features industrial carpeting and mold.

My house has a Michigan basement. My gym is located in my Michigan basement. I bought my home in the summer. My first winter, in my first home, I learned all about Michigan basements, and which store I like better, Home Depot or Lowes.

Michigan basements are are filthy caves disguised as nice basements that drive up home prices (as opposed to home values). The walls get damp. The homeowners get mad.

Bubbles Bubbles On The Wall

Damp cave walls (painted to look like a family room) are the perfect host for mold and bubbling paint, all quite disturbing to a neat freak. Throughout the winter, the walls bubble, the mold appears and I scrape and paint.

None of the scraping and painting does a bit of good because eventually, it always comes back. But it always makes me feel better (especially when the paint is still wet) which is at the heart of Martha's word if you will.

Recipe: Miniature Pleated Candied Curtains With Gerber Daisy Embellishments
Difficulty: Easy
Prep Time: Five Minutes

People who make fun of Martha don't get Martha and never will. It's never been about making the miniature, pleated, candied curtains with Gerber Daisy embellishments come out perfect. Martha's projects are about survival. The longer they take, the longer we have to sort things out.

Martha Stewart projects are as much about the end result as they are about keeping our minds off our troubles and learning how to take back control of our lives and rebuild our self-esteem. So what if I live in a mold pit? My mold pit gets a fresh coat of paint bi-monthly and I get to see all the new tools at Lowes and Home Depot.

WWGD (What Would Giada Do)?

When I can'€™t sleep at night, I ask myself the hard questions. Last night it was: What would Giada do if she had mold in her basement? And then I answer them:

She'd be PTPOKDT (past-the-point-of-keeping-down-toast) horrified but she's Giada. It would be handled. With that young Jackie O air she has about her, she would very discreetly and very quickly wash that mold right out of the air. Paula Deene would have her boys sort it all out. Ina would would call her builder.

Sandra Lee would pour canned fruit cocktail over cubed pound cake, toss it all together until everything was thoroughly combined, and then divide the mixture among six plastic (you-put-em-together) parfait "glasses", top them all with a generous dollop of frozen whipped topping and call it Healthy Breakfast Bread Pudding for Kidz with a z.

If for no other reason than the Pope is coming to Michigan this summer, I've got to stop painting over this problem. So far, my house isn'€™t on his itinerary but he'll likely hear about my home cooking and try to stop in for a bite to eat. If it's hot, maybe I'll serve pitchers of homemade Sweet Meyer Lemonade and generous slices of Strawberry Rhubarb Pie topped with homemade Strawberry Ice Cream made with Strawberries we pick from Longs Farm (a local farm so close, I can almost smell the strawberry blossoms at night). Happy New Year Everyone and Happy New You!                                                                                 

This is an Amber Alert for Hue Pajamas...

by Kathleen Daelemans

The gorgeous child with Santa is one of my three equally beautiful nieces.

Chef Kathleen's Favorite Things as Seen on NBC's Today  

What? You haven't seen my list of favorite things? They're certainly more practical and affordable than everyone else's (insert sound of horn tooting, followed by a sound byte from my Mother, "For Pete's sake, Kathleen, haven't I raised you better than to behave like a braggart?").

Of course she has. All I'm saying is there's no $4000 dollar refrigerator on my list and you won't see Ciao Bella gelato and sorbetto on my list even though Oprah and Giada both put it on their lists. I've probably been eating it longer than the both of them which makes me, well, cooler of course.

Who eats more gelato? Me, Oprah or Giada?

I'm quite sure I eat more of gelato than the both of them put together. Oprah's got Bob hanging around her all the time and Giada's got a little bun in her oven, plus she's so darn Viva Glam she'd never put on a pair of Flannels, watch back to back Taye Diggs anything and plow through a pint of Valrhona Chocolate (Ciao Bella) gelato.

For the record, I don't actually, plow through the pints anymore. I'm much more refined. In the old days, I'd plow. Now, I serve myself "delicate" portions in one-of-a-kind vintage dishes and tea cups. I don't wear flannel when I'm dining on Ciao Bella gelato from lovely, dainty vintage dishes either (portion control people). They don't go. Culinary fashionista...get it?

Hue-licious!

I usually wear Hue P.J.'s in lacy, girl-y, spring fabrics and fabulous colors. Naturally they match the colors in my sheets, the gelato, my nightstand accessories, the dainty dishes and my totally natural blonde highlights, pop! Just in case a mob of paparazzi show up during G-time demanding interviews.

What? It could happen. But it won't. Because they don't sell Hue P.J.s anymore, anywhere. This alone is reason enough to find a very high ledge and contemplate jumping. Or boycott Nordstrom. And Macys, both of whom used to carry them. What were they thinking when they discontinued carrying Hue P.J.'s?

Dear Hue Santa,

If you're listening, please come back! I can't sleep without you! Your colors and patterns and fabrics are scrumptious. You make P.J.s in lengths that are perfect for petite (short) women. I can actually walk into a store, buy off the wrack and not have to "hem" my P.J.'s. There's nothing worse than catching site of my reflection in a full length mirror with my Hue's rolled up before I've had a chance to hem them except having to hem pajamas! It's positively upsetting. I mean, get-out-the-tums-right-now upsetting.


Hue P.J.s helped me give up half my food crack habits. I weaned myself off pints of ice cream and sleeves of cookies with Hue. You were my grand prize for running my first mile, for walking my first 10K. You're the first thing I dream about when I need a good pick me up. My Mom and my sisters and I would plan shopping trips around getting new Hue P.J.s. We're practically shut-ins now. We're not even putting  up Christmas decorations this year...sigh. Now SNAP out of it and get back to my favorite stores.

Sincerely,

Kathleen

P.S. I speak for all your fans

Hue didn't make my list but you know they would have if I just could have found a pair...to see what did, click on the link below.   

Chef Kathleen's Favorite Things as Seen on NBC's Today 

Does My Butt Look Fat in Brad Pitt's Jeans?

by Kathleen Daelemans

I got your attention didn't I? It's for a good cause. I'm pretty sure Brad Pitt might even approve of the gross mis-use of his name if he gets past the air-sickness-bag part of this.

Janice Dickinson called Tyra Banks fat on the Today show this morning. The woman looked half a breath mint shy of falling off her stool from starvation if you ask me. Perhaps this is a cheap shot but I can't believe she's eating a well rounded diet. She can't weigh 105 pounds.

Shots of Jennifer Love-Hewitt in a bikini with unflattering headlines calling her fat are all over the news this week too. The good that will come of this complete waste of our country's time and financial resources is that we as a nation, can continue our conversation on body image.

As an auntie with three young nieces, body image, food and nutrition are hot topics. My youngest niece is the real Princess Aurora, but my other two nieces are both tweens and would rather walk home from the mall than have a conversation with me about body image and self esteem.

I took them out the other night. We were in a check out line facing the new issue of a women's health magazine. There was pre-teen on the cover (posing as a 40 year old) in a bikini. I can just hear the photographer, "Okay lean back, now suck it in. A little more, a little more, until you feel your hip bones lock into your tail bone. Okay, did you hear the click? No? Keep sucking..."

Make it Right Swag




Think of the houses Bratt Pitt could have put up this week in New Orleans with the money spent "reporting" on Jennifer Love-Hewitt's tush and Tyra's Bank's weight. A few more families could be home for the holidays. Five dollars on a gossip magazine or five dollars to Make it Right  - "Your donation to Make it Right is guaranteed to get to the people who need it most - the victims of Hurricane Katrina. There is no minimum, give what you can. With your help, we can Make it Right again."

Feed on gossip? Or feast on humanity? Your voice is heard. Your children hear you. The children in the Lower 9th Ward - one of the larger rebuilding projects in New Orleans- hear you. Put your money where your morals are. Make it Right this holiday. All donations are welcome - from one dollar up. Make it Right merchandise from  $20.00

My Favorite Things

 

                  
By Kathleen Daelemans

Every year I'm asked to do gift segments for the Today show. They're not titled, Kathleen's Favorite Gifts, but you can bet they are. Why would I put anything on National Television I didn't absolutely love. This year I'm doing bulk gifts -- things you can buy in bulk and then mix and match with other items -- to make up scrumptious gift baskets for those you love.

You won't find a $4000 dollar freezer on my list, or a pint of sorbet (I much prefer full fat ice cream in winter) but you will find an unusual collection of gifts for everyone on your list. The entire list will be up before my segment airs next week (can you say web blog exclusive) with a complete price list and live links. I just love reading everyone's Favorite Thing's list this time of year!

I haven't seen everything on Martha's list yet but I did catch a minute of her show today. Martha was giving away gifts from  Bellocchio, an adorable shop in San Francisco, located at number 10 Brady Street (415.864.4048).

Way back when, once-upon-a-time-ago...

...I was a line cook at Zuni Cafe  in San Francisco. As soon as it opened, on my breaks, I used to run across Market Street to Bellocchio, a tiny, very lovely shop so beautiful it was easy to feel as though you were in a Paris shop. Bellocchio offers antiques and curiosities, as well as rare merchandise produced by historic ateliers. For 19 years,Bellocchio has focused on the beautiful, from the selection of merchandise to its presentation, and no parcel leaves without the shop's snappy signature gift wrapping.

I began visiting Bellocchio when it still smelled of fresh paint from its grand opening. I made friends with the owners, Toby and Claudia who used to come into the Cafe every morning for Cafe Lattes, scones and poached eggs. We traded stories of wonderful meals taken on our days off or of particularly busy afternoons of endless customers.

Bellocchio was just starting out. Zuni Cafe was in its infancy but the restaurant was always bustling with important guests such as Craig Claiborne, Pierre Franey, Elizabeth David and Catherine Denuvre. Every shift felt like New Years Eve. Escaping over to  Bellocchio felt like a mini trip to France.

Toby and Claudia invited me to serve hot cocoa to their guests during the holidays which I made from melted chocolate and real whipped cream. I'd spend every penny I'd earn serving the hot cocoa on sweet little offerings from their shop which is so lovely you imagine yourself moving in a bed and a cat and living there for the rest of your life. The job paid for the Christmas presents I sent home every year.

My Today show Favorite Things segment will air on December 4th only it will be called Bulk Gifts. I'll be posting all my favorite things throughout the week. I'd post them all at once in an organized fashion but I'm so far behind I can't possibly get them up here all at once. I'm nowhere near done putting together all of my segment notes for my producer but I wanted to pop in and give you a sneak peak of things to come.

My very first  Favorite Thing is from Ta-ze.com. It's their olive oil soap made with sage and loofah. It has a wonderful spa-like fragrance. The sage isn't overbearing or contrived. The loofa helps to slough off dead skin that always seems to shows up around this time of year. Plus it feels like someone is giving you a scrumptious little back scratch every time you get in the shower. I can't say enough good things about this soap.

I'm not one who parts easily with her money so the ten dollar price tag was hard for me to swallow but the beautiful packaging had me at hello. I may not have followed through with the sale if it weren't for the passion of owner Didem Tapban who took the time to explain to me she had personally chose the soap for her store.

"For centuries olive oil has been used to maintain the suppleness of skin and muscle, to heal abraisions, to give body and sheen to hair and to soothe the drying effects of sund and wind."  My first bar has lasted about nine months so far and I swear I bathe every day. You can even ask my Mom.

Dame Edna Charm School Class of '08

By Kathleen Daelemans

My father is recently retired. Before that, he hadn't touched a tool in fifty years. Before that, he never successfully completed a home repair job. Now all of a sudden he thinks he should be a master plumber, a furniture maker, a master mechanic and an electrician.

At night when she should be sleeping, my mother creates lengthy to-do lists for him. “It keeps him out of trouble”. My father never had any intention of ever retiring. He loves to work. He was a real rocket scientist. And when he retired from a 25 year career of doing whatever it is rocket scientists do, he took on another career and then another.

The Magical Blinking Dishwasher

In all, he’s retired from three careers in the time most people work and retire from one. He loves to work. "He loves to drive me crazy is what he loves to do, Kathleen. Write that down." My Mom asked my Dad to hook up a new phone. What should have been a simple job has turned into the equivalent of installing a new master bath with Playschool helpers.

My father doesn’t ask for directions. And he doesn’t read instructions. He’s cobbled his way through home repairs for 35 years and we’ve got the magical blinking dishwasher to prove it. The phone project started out okay. All the cellophane wrapping came off the box in one pull. Everything went downhill from there.

Suddenly, all the wiring between the kitchen and the hallway had to be pulled out and redone, "Those idiot contractors wired this whole house backwards.” By his account, every socket, wall plug and light fixture was installed by an electrical engineering school escapee and the house was in imminent danger of burning down at any second. FYI, my parents have lived in the house for 35 years and there’s never been anything wrong with the wiring.

Chef Ralph Lauren

My mother and I have a sewing date every Wednesday. Unfortunately our workspace is in the kitchen where the new phone installation was taking place (or not taking place). So far, I’ve made two skirts and I’m almost done with an adorable mini dress to wear with my new, lacy footless tights. I told you I’d figure out a way to wear footless tights this season.

I’m practicing for Project Runway. No doubt Heidi will see me on the Today show some morning in one of my gorgeous girl creations. She’ll be on the phone with Meredith faster than you can say Café Latte asking all about the clothes on my back and making all kinds of orders no doubt. 

The next thing you know, I’ll be smack in the middle of the first cooking show slash reality show, in an absolute panic, designing Heidi’s next Emmy dress (think Project Jay).  In case you've been living in a non-civilized world void of electricity (therefor working televisions), Project Jay is a one hour special that follows season one Project Runway winner, Jay McCarroll as he sets up his new life in New York City. The special features Heidi (Klum, possums, Heidi Klum) calling up Jay and ordering a dress for the Emmy's with the nonchalance of a shut-in ordering QVC item HD-23756 The Felt Teddy Bears, Pack of 6, on flex pay. Heidi hangs up, Jay nearly cracks up and then fun begins! Life as you know it is over until the credits roll.

Project Brownie Pan

My mother will be the rational one doing all the sewing. I’ll be the wide-eyed hysterical woman with under eye bags baking batches and batches of brownies under the ruse of trying to discover the world’s best brownie recipe.

Our sewing date was going swimmingly until my father realized it wasn’t all about him. He doesn’t like it when he’s not the center of attention. And he can’t stand it when he doesn’t have an audience. We tried to sew and pretend we were concerned about the trouble he was having and we even offered him genuine support every other fifth paragraph. But when he began to choreograph his diatribe with flying electrical tools, my Mom and I decided it was time to invent errands to run.

It was cold outside. My Mom put on her coat and I threw on my fabulous new, black mohair, poncho. Admittedly, my gorgeous-girl poncho makes me feel very, well, very much like a woman who loves couture, wearing the closest thing she’ll ever own to couture. The poncho was purchased in a store near couture at the Galleries Lafayette at 40 Boulevard Haussmann, 75009 Paris.

There's Nothing Like the Rush of a Good Buy at a Great Tag Sale

I didn’t buy my scrumptious, coveted, don’t-touch-it, I heart you poncho in Paris. I got it at a garage sale in a very swanky neighborhood near my home, for ten bucks. La la la! Ten bucks. Straight from the dry cleaner with the tag still on it. Martha can you hear me?

Sure, Martha can afford anything she wants including a private plane to Paris, a suite at the Ritz, a car and driver and ponchos for all her pals, but Martha can appreciate a good deal and I think she’d be proud. Are you proud Martha? I think Martha is proud. I’m proud. Everyone one loves my new poncho. Everyone.

“I hope you’re not talking about that Orson Wells looking cape, Kathleen.” My Mother doesn’t care for my new fabulous poncho. It’s a clear case of jealousy. It’s Fancy Nancy totally delicious and she’s just mad she didn’t find it first.

We got to the post office in record time. The post flying-electrical-tool stress disorder slash adrenaline rush hadn't worn off. Normally we like to drive five miles under the speed limit. My mom's practicing her Miss Daisy act. We parked in front of the post office and could see through the floor-to-ceiling windows, the place was packed. But we didn’t care because we weren’t in a hurry. I would have been right behind my Mom if disaster hadn’t struck.

Dame Edna Charm School Class of '08

I like to make Dame Edna style grand entrances wherever I go. As I stepped out of the car onto the pavement, I gathered up the long billowy folds of soft mohair and threw them over my left shoulder. It was a sunny fall day but the air was brisk. I adjusted my sunglasses, pursed my pink glossed lips together, gathered my leather gloves, and quilted soft leather bag and started to make my way towards my mother. I was yanked back towards my car faster than an out of key singer being yanked off the Apollo stage.

My gorgeous girl, black mohair, almost couture, Fancy Nancy, Paris Department store, totally scrumptious poncho was stuck in the door of my car. Make that jammed in the door of my car. My coat was half on my and half in the car. My entrance was ruined.

I couldn’t stop laughing. I laughed so hard I cried my mascara down to my knee highs. “You laughed like an idiot and all those people in the post office were laughing at you is who was laughing, Kathleen.”

My Mother had no idea why I was bent over the car door handle. First she thought I was crying. Then she thought I was nuts. She wouldn’t come near me.

“What are you doing?”
“My coat is stuck”
“Your coat is stuck?”
“My coat is stuck.”
“Well try the keys”
“I tried the keys”
“Try them again”
“I tried them again”
“Can’t you unlock the car”
“No. I’m going to have to call On-star to come get me out of my coat. Hello, on-star?”
“This is on-star. What is your emergency?”
“I’m stuck in my coat at the post-office.”
“You’re stuck in your coat?”
“It’s not a coat, it’s my favorite poncho.”
“You’re stuck in your poncho, mam? Is this a prank call?”

A kind man came over and asked if I needed help. Through hysterical laughing, crying, sloppy mascara tears, I nodded yes. While he threw his 250 pounds of pure muscles into the job of freeing my Fancy Nancy poncho, I pictured fire engines and on-star trucks rolling into the post-office parking lot filled with handsome men, eager to save the beautiful princess and the ten-dollar poncho.

After pulling and tugging with all his might, the big stron man put one foot on the side of my car to steady himself and pulled as hard as he could. Shazam! Gorgeous Girl was free! The people inside the post office erupted in a round of applause. The man looked as proud as if he’d delivered my first child. I thanked him profusely. At last, I was reunited with the second half of my beautiful new poncho. All was well in the world once again.

I did make a grand entrance after all. Just not how I’d envisioned it. But as Dame Edna wisely advises, “If you can't laugh at yourself, you could be missing the joke of the century."

Lessons from Princess Aurora

By Kathleen Daelemans

I woke up like I always do, leaping to my feat in pain because my obese cat, Fujin* can’t sleep unless he’s sprawled across both of my legs, just below the knee, in a way that cuts off my circulation. Something about temperature control. He doesn’t like me warm and alive. Normally when  I’m writhing around in pain at 4:00 a.m., I like to watch tabloid T.V.

Access Hollywood is doing a month long series on Body Image.** Marlee Matlin is the first celebrity in the series and she wants to lose weight.
 
The Tiniest Loser

 Marlee wants to feel less insecure and happier about her body. All women want to feel beautiful. Just before she announced that it was time for Marlee's "before" weigh-in, the host gave Marlee one of those cliche Hollywood shame-on-you looks.

Marlee shriveled deeper into herself. If you were using crayons to color the scene, you would have had to draw a black cloud over a patch of yellow daisies. The sun's sparkling light went out of Marlee's eyes when it was time for her to weigh in.

Height: 5’3”
Weight: 129
Waist: 28 1/2
Hips: 38
Thighs 23 1/2

Marlee didn't look happy about her numbers. If I weighed 129 pounds and had a 28 inch waist, I’d wallpaper the outside of my house with my numbers, take pictures of myself all day long and have hourly slide shows of me and all my friends in our favorite cute outfits.

It’s no wonder  Marlee is confused and insecure about her body. She lives in Hollywood. According to last night's story on Access Hollywood, A 19 year old, 99 pound Matlin was told to lay off the snacks while shooting a film or they’d have to stop production. In another role, What the Blink Do We Know? Marlee’s character examined negative thoughts about her body. Of course she wants to lose weight, by Hollywood’s standards, she’s in dangerous territory. She’s had four children and she’s forty two years old.

Have a Donut and Some Hot Cider and Call Me in the Morning

If you want my advice Marlee, and I know you do (insert smiley face here) go home. Spend a couple of weeks out here in the cozy Midwest where there are no Extreme Makeover hotels***, no “beautiful people” and no pressure to live up to unrealistic, unhealthy body “ideals”.

The baristas at our coffee shops aren’t thinner than the coffee stirrers, the saleswomen in our department stores look you in the eye (as opposed to other body parts) and greet you with genuine kindness.  Bring your daughters. Rent a house on a lake somewhere. Leave your cell phones and blackberries and laptops back in Hollywood. 

Fall in love

caring for your soul

through joyful acts. Teach your girls how to cook from scratch with ingredients you pick up at local markets. Bring your favorite cookbooks and go play in the kitchen. One of the greatest gifts you have to offer your children is to show them how to care for and nurture themselves through the food choices they make before they leave home for good.

Row, Row, Row Your Boat

Take long walks along the lake shores. Find secret paths in the woods and crunch through fresh fallen leaves. Rent a canoe and paddle down a river without talking. Go to a cider mill. Spend an afternoon in an apple orchard. Breathe the fresh Mid-western air. Roast marshmallows at night and make real smores. Watch the stars. You can see all of them from here.

Laugh like a fool every day …

You won't find rest, relaxation or self esteem in your sock drawer. Take the week off! Or a weekend, or leave an hour early every day this week. If you can't take the week off work, take the week off worrying. No more worrying about anything. No more, I'm fat, I'm broke,I'm worried, my butt is huge, if only, if only, if only...

Channel that negative energy into positive, affirmative action. Take notes. Right down your hopes and dreams and goals. Review them when you hear the negative voices starting up again.

When you've had a chance to rest and re-route your energy, Marlee and Company,  take a shower and put on your most luxurious robe. Before you leave the bathroom, stand in front the biggest mirror there is and gaze lovingly into your eyes. Even if the two year old is clinging to your ankle(you'll both live).

I trust that you'll see and get reacquainted with the beautiful miracle that is your healthy, functioning body, the one that houses your soul. I hope you can’t help but smile, and that your girls are near you then, and your collective smiles turn to laughter and tears of joy and hope.

I’ll bet, Marlee Matlin, (OR insert your name here) that with a little practice and an open heart you’ll find your way back to that unconditional love and appreciation you had for your body when you were a little girl and you looked in the mirror and twirled round and round in your beautiful dresses.

And you’ll do it without exercising in an un-fun way and you'll do it without eating kelp. And you'll do it without feeling "less than" or "inferior" or insecure. You'll achieve the body you want and the health you deserve through laughter and play because you're setting an example for your children and plain and simple, it's a whole lot more fun!
_______________________________________________________________________________________

*I inherited Fujin from his Japanese Mom, Chef Miho Mizuno. She named Fujin after the Japanese God of Wind the day her best friend Hana brought the kitten home for her. Miho knew she was dying. “When I die, I will become wind so I can be with him always”.  I’m not sure hanging out with a cat who likes to roll around in the dirt and chase squirrels would be my first choice as an afterlife companion.

**Body Image Month? How about Warped body image month? The stylists for the Desperate Housewives are either making the clothes for those women or they’re using wrapping paper to cover them up. There’s something wrong when you can see pelvic bones through denim.

***Extreme Makeover Hotels - hotels situated near or connected to a plastic surgery center or hospital that specializes in plastic surgery for the rich and famous. Guests are all similarly dressed in luxury spa robes and post-op bandages and are usually accompanied by personal nurses.

The Bacon Cure

By Kathleen Daelemans

Top Ten Ways to De-stress During the Holidays

1.  Iron.

2. Hand sew almost anything.

3. Reupholster your dining room chairs. It’s really simple.

4. Make a sea-shell framed mirror with an inside pearl border.

5. Paint your wood floors. It’s relaxing.

6. Hand bead a dress for an upcoming important party.

7. Take that crappy wooden chair your husband’s had
since college and paint it bright orange. Then paint
thousands of miniature flowers all over it and tell
everyone you got it at an art fair for only $300.

8. Make a purse from scratch.

9. Remove all the non-fun people from your guest lists.

10. Sauté bacon strips and simultaneously practice your deep breathing exercises.

Skinny Jeans with a Chubby Hubby Chaser

By Kathleen Daelemans

I just got through talking to him. It's for sure for sure. When you come home from grocery shopping and you eat Ben and Jerry's straight from the pint container with a spoon, the calories don't count if your next meal includes vegetables. God just wants us all to be happy.

I'm back in my skinny jeans. I'm hoping this time it's for good. Although my inner psychiatrist just pointed out that "hoping" is about as effective as binging on Halloween candy in bed while watching back to back Tivo episodes of Private Practice and Grey's Anatomy. And lest you think I’m talking about myself, (I can prove I’m not the girl who wolfs down M&M’s in bed). I hate Grey’s Anatomy. I used to be in love with it. Now, I’m not even in like with it. In fact, we broke up.

Please Don't Pass the Grey's (and Poup-on Them)

Why rip apart a really great show just because a bunch of formerly unemployed actors couldn't get along? Did these lucky stars forget what it was like to not be able to pay their rent every month? Did they forget what it was like to go to audition after audition and get no call backs? Where did their manners go? Did they stop listening to their mothers? If nothing else, couldn’t they have at least shown respect for their fellow actors and every other working professional dedicated to the success of the show they are only a tiny part of? The new Grey’s is nothing to call your girls out for and it’s certainly not exciting enough to eat M&M’s in bed over.

Ask me about Private Practice and I'll tell you about girls-night-out and what we eat while we watch Doctor hotties barely work and live magical, sunny California beach lives. Private Practice is a Grey's Anatomy spin-off and is written by the same writers of Grey's. It stars one of Grey's main characters and 7 other hottie actors including (thank GOD he's back on television) Taye Diggs. It's the kind of show, that when it's over and you've had one cosmo too many, you don't mind the extra 45 minutes you owe the treadmill in the morning.

Frequent Cruciferous Veggie Miles
 
I’m quite good at seal coating excuses to eat Ben and Jerry’s into my psyche, so it’s important to be very good at working healthy meals into my diet. I have no intention of ever giving up the foods I love. Portion control? Sure. It’s necessary. I can deal with it. But give up ice cream? Never.

How do I stay motivated? My Cauliflower Rewards Program. You’re probably thinking A) She’s crazy B) She’s funny C) She must really like Cauliflower. Answers: A) yes, B) Thank you, C) It’s okay. I developed a food rewards program because who doesn’t like presents?

I know all the shrinks say you shouldn’t reward yourself with food. But what am I going to give myself? A leaf blower? Food is cheap, food is love, food is yummy, food makes me dance! I love food. Besides, if I didn’t use desserts as a prize for eating healthy, I wouldn’t eat things like rutabaga, cabbage, brussel sprouts, chick peas and fish three times a week. Be honest, would you?

If I were more disciplined, my rewards program would be a carefully crafted food and exercise program. By most people’s standards, I’m un-disciplined, however I do have a system. I listen to the chorus in my head and I pay close attention to all Voice Foods. Let me introduce you:

The Chorus: Includes but is not limited to, Too-Lazy-To-Cook girl, Procrastinator Girl, Self-Sabotage Girl, I-Ate-Veggies-Yesterday Girl, I’ll-Exercise-Double-Tomorrow Girl and The-Dryer-Shrunk-My-Jeans again Girl. The chorus shows up at food and exercise crossroads. Ignore them, and the needle on the scale goes up. Listen to the chorus, and make the right decisions (mostly always) and your skinny jeans are married for life.

The Food Crack Happy Dance

Voice Foods: Foods that make you do the Food-Crack-Happy-Dance. Foods that say, "You have no business eating this." "You've already eaten two portions." "You're almost done with the pint, you might as well finish it." "Throw your napkin over the plate and stop already." " Carrots don't talk to you.

I change the rules of my Cauliflower Rewards Program whenever I need to. Today the rules are, eat Beet Green Pasta for dinner, have Chubby Hubby ice cream for dessert. There needs to be a reward for eating Beet Green Pasta for dinner. Just ask my father. If he’d had more notice, despite the fact that it's a Sunday night, he would have found someplace to go. He hates beet greens.

I don't hate beet greens, but I sure don't crave them, and I've certainly never been "starving" for them. I've been "starving" for French fries and "starving" for ice-cream, but I've never been "starving" for beet greens. My mom, on the other hand, loves beet greens.

We go to the farmer's market every week. And every week we buy beet greens from the same farmer. He always asks us if we'd like the greens torn off. We tell him no and explain that we come to the market early while all the greens are still lively and fresh because we love his beet greens. This pleases him to no end. "Would you like extra?" he always offers. Because his bunches are so generous to begin with, we have to decline. We make his day nonetheless and he makes ours.

A Four Ingredient, Very Satisfying Supper - Beet Green Pasta

     Beet greens must be thoroughly washed and dried. This doesn't take a lot of time, but if you're lazy, you imagine this to take more time than bathing a litter of piglets.  In reality, all that's required is to fill up a sink with water, so you can drop the leaves in, swish them around, lift them out and leave them to dry on a towel. You have the option of drying them using a salad spinner if you'd rather. To store them (they'll keep for up to ten days or so if you dry them well) wrap them in paper towels and place them in a plastic bag.

TIP: If you're making Beet Green Pasta, you don't need to dry the beet greens. The droplets of water will help to cook the greens.

To prepare the beet green pasta:

1. Wash 1 bunch of beet greens and leave them to dry.

2. Soak 1/4 cup of roughly chopped raisins in enough hot water to cover them, set aside.

3. Place a large pasta pot of water on the stove to boil.

4. Dice a medium onion and put it in a large soup pot with a tablespoon of olive oil over medium heat.

5. Using a microplane grater, mince one clove of garlic over the pot of onions and tap it in. Add a bay leaf. Cover and cook until the onions have completely softened, about 10 minutes. You may have to add a splash of water to keep the onions from burning.

6. Chop the beet greens into 1/2 inch strips or chiffonade, or however you like.

7. Finish cooking the pasta, reserve 1 cup of pasta water.

8. Add beet greens to the onions.

9. Add 1 cup of pasta water, the raisins and their liquid.

10. Add a shake or two of sherry vinegar or red wine vinegar if you prefer.

11. Add a few sprinkles of cayenne pepper (about 1/8th teaspoon).

12. Add the cooked and drained pasta and toss everything together. Taste and adjust seasonings. Serve immediately.

You might be thinking A) this pasta is nothing to get excited about B) She’s crazy) and C) no wonder she promises herself ice-cream for dessert. Answers: A) It’s out of this world, great! B) Probably. A little. Some would say a lot. C) Would I have tried Beet Green Pasta without the promise of a Chubby Hubby chaser? Yes. Would I make it “all” the time without my “just desserts” ? Nope. 

My Pet, Last Ten Pounds

By Kathleen Daelemans

I’m writing a new cookbook. It’s called, The Last Ten Pounds (or The First Ten Pounds). Because it’s time we broke up. Every time I go shopping and put on something I think for sure is going to look great on me, and I can’t even get the garment up and over my hump-ety hump, or around the girls almighty, there they are, those last ten pounds, howling at me in the mirror. “Did you forget about us? You promised to let us out of here six months ago!  It’s no fun living in a blistering pair of unventilated jeans, three sizes too small!” “Living with you is like living on a Tokyo subway car at rush hour, all the time.”

     “And P.S. Goldilocks, quit trying to hide us in Spanx. That’s like trying to hide a big screen television in your underwear. Do you think people don’t notice the full term baby you’re never going to birth? Besides, if you don’t stop testing the boundaries of Spanx, you’re going to have back-fat-Spandex wallpaper at your next dinner party when you bend over to take the Turkey out of the oven. These living conditions are unbearable. You’re not a woman of your word. We believed you when you said this time would be it. But you haven’t lost an ounce. If we have to spend another year hip to hip with you, the least you can do is wear comfortable jeans.”

Rebuttal from the Diet Queen of Denial

     What? My jeans are loose. Feel my butt right now. There’s room. I swear. I couldn’t buy my pants any bigger. They’d fall off. They’re the size I always wear. I’m not fat. I eat vegetables. I had squash yesterday. That’s all I had all day. What? Okay, was I supposed to throw out all the extra mashed potatoes at dinner? As it is, I gave away half my second cocktail.

     I don’t have any ice cream in my freezer right now.  My palms are orange from all the carrots I’ve been eating lately. And I’ve gone to the Farmers Market every Saturday since May. All that has to count.

     I have a treadmill and lots of weight machines in my basement. I have two road bikes and some yoga dvds. I even have three of those giant blow-up medicine balls that are good for your core muscles. Strengthening your core muscles is the latest rage you know. I’m up on all the stuff. I even bought two new cozy workout hoodies with matching drawstring pants on clearance at Nordstrom so I’m all set.

My Fat, On Carrots And Lies

My last ten pounds: “Oh please. Do you think we don’t know you’re eating a Dark Chocolate Oatmeal Cookie straight from the oven as you type this blog?”

Me: “Uh..testing recipes, have to make a living thank you very much!”

My Last ten pounds: “You haven’t been down to your basement to work out since last winter. If you had, you would have noticed the pants that no longer fit you hanging all over the exercise equipment you seem to no longer use.”

     The romance left this affair decades ago. I’m writing the book, The Last Ten Pounds (The First Ten Pounds) book because I love to eat. I love to eat what I want to eat. Not what some diet guru wants me to eat. I believe cooking at home is the key to solving the obesity crisis in America. Among other things, Americans cook dinner less than one time a week or some such horrible statistic. When you cook your own food, you have total control over the quantity and quality of the calories you consume.

     Cooking at home more than you eat out, is a very easy way to slowly cut back on portion sizes and the number of overall calories, grams of fat and grams of sodium you consume each day. We just do not serve ourselves the same size portions as restaurants. “Honey, please pass the 32 ounce steak. “Sure Dear. Will you hand me a three cup serving of mashed potatoes made with one cup of manufacturing cream, one tablespoon of salt and 3 tablespoons of butter?”

I, Diet Queen of Denial, hearby swear, never to miss dessert again

     I love desserts. Cooking at home gives me the control I need over my diet to make room for calories I’m passionate about, dessert. Oatmeal and fruit for breakfast, a vegetarian lunch of roasted squash soup and a garden salad and a light dinner of sautéed pork tenderloin, homemade applesauce and sautéed Swiss chard leaves me plenty of room for a serving of pumpkin cheesecake made with real everything (real sugar, real cream cheese, real eggs, etc…) for dessert.

     Eating normal portions of real food, and normal portions of real desserts, means I’m never left feeling hungry or worse, starving from servings of empty calorie diet foods made from artificial sweeteners and fake fats. Eating normal portions of real foods, including locally grown and organic fruits and vegetables and whole grains, means I never feel deprived from mediocre tasting foods made with lackluster ingredients.

     Cooking at home gives me the opportunity to learn more about where the food I eat comes from. Cooking at home and shopping locally gives me the opportunity to explore the relationship between the food choices I make and the impact my purchases have on the community I live in.    

     Cooking at home is the surest way I know to get rid of the last ten pounds. Heaven knows diets haven’t worked for me or the other seven zillion women I hear complaining about their last ten pounds. Cooking and eating foods I love, when I want and how I want seems like fun. Okay, so cooking and eating all the vegetables I need to eat every week is taking some getting used to. I mean if I had it nailed, I wouldn’t be writing, The Last Ten Pounds (the First Ten Pounds).

My All Butter, All Fat, All Fun, Baking Every Day Diet

By Kathleen Daelemans

In the spirit of “baking nearly every day", my Mom and I (and my Dad) have been eating baked goods nearly every day but it’s been too hot to cook. Thank goodness we’d baked enough last week and hadn’t given away the leftovers. We don’t give our baked goods away like Dorie1. We like our neighbors, but not that much. Besides, they reciprocate. And we don’t like what they make.2

We were enjoying our dead-of-summer October but yesterday, when the weather turned so quickly, we called each other up and made plans to get together to catch up on our “baking nearly every day”. We were three days behind. We're working on cookbooks and stuff. Testing other people's tested recipes and, you know, getting inspired to think about what kind of healthy recipes we want to put in my next book, which will have nothing to do with baking. But, well, it's cold outside, and I exercised last week so it's important to bake today.   

Baking Triple Header!

I chose the Pumpkin Muffins. The recipe is inspired by a version from Sarabeth’s restaurant in New York City, a restaurant I eat at almost every time I go to the city. Not because it’s inexpensive mind you. I go for the English muffins. And the pastry basket, and the four flowers juice (a blend of four freshly squeezed juices). I go for the heavenly homemade omelets they serve for lunch, and the chopped salads, and everything else on the menu. I love Sarabeth's . Everything is fresh and good and as it should be. 

The hot buttered English muffins are so good, I’d hand over the keys to my car for an order. They’re not really English muffins. When you order them, they arrive in a tiny basket, wrapped in a warm towel (if you order the pastry basket, which I always do). The muffin is a four-inch tall, cylindrical tower of sourdough toast cut into thirds horizontally. It arrives piping hot and perfectly buttered. Sarabeth’s always offers two flavors of homemade jam. When I can’t choose, I order two English muffins. It’s a sin, I know. But Central Park is just across the street for me to make amends.

My Mom woke up early today and made, A Tribute to Katherine Herpburn Brownies. That’s the title, for real. Tribute recipes, now there’s a cookbook. A Tribute to John Belushi Hash Brownies, A Tribute to Elvis Presley Peanut Butter Banana Brownies, A Tribute to George H. W. Bush Broccoli Brownies, A Tribute to Bill Cosby Jello Pudding Brownies.

How Old is Too Old To Lick The Spoon?
 
I called to let her know I was on my way, “I’m licking my spoonula” she said with the glee of a five and a half year old, “The house will smell like chocolate when you get here.” I stepped it up two miles over the speed limit. I could hardly wait to walk in the front door of my childhood home and smell Mom's homemade brownies! If I got pulled over, I'd accept my ticket and then invite the officer over. By the end of his first brownie, we'd be friends and he'd think better of of that little old ticket.

My mother’s best time of day is between 4:00 am and 1:00 p.m. If you want to get her in a good mood, call her before the local news wraps and the Today show starts. The brownies were out of the oven before the Today show went to their first commercial.

Nearly Perfect Living

The second recipe my Mom chose was corn muffins, The Corniest Corn Muffins to be precise. She decided to make them for lunch. Her reasoning was that she was only making half a recipe. Since there were three of us, we could each have one warm corn muffin for lunch and one leftover corn muffin for dinner.
One of the things I love about my mom is how sensible is! Only a Mom would come up with a menu that included warm corn muffins twice on the first bone chilling day of fall.

Today's lunch menu turned out to be warm corn muffins, sautéed beet greens with raisins and bacon in a little olive oil, salt and pepper, roasted squash and cranberry sauce. We were indeed, celebrating Autumn (and saving our calories for dinner).

Santa Baby...
    
Tonight we’re having squash soup, a light salad and the leftover corn muffins for dinner and the brownies for dessert. Waiting for the brownies to be cut is like waiting for Santa to show up. Really. I mean, as an adult, how many things do you have to wait for anymore? It’s 4:40 p.m. Dinner isn’t until 5:30. I’m starving right now. So not starving. Santa isn’t due for another whole, forever do-we-have-to, can’t-we-have-them-NOW, fifty minutes. I can’t wait that long. “Yes you can, Kathleen. The glitterati don’t eat dinner until 8:00.” 

    
_________________________________________________________________________________________

1. See, Recipe For a Snuffeluffagus to get caught up.

2. So totally not true. Especially Alice who actually reads this blog and cooks every night for her husband and two sons and cooks with me (thank heavens or there wouldn't be two finished cookbooks). 

    

Recipe for a Snuffaluffagus

by Kathleen Daelemans & Rita Daelemans

My Mom and I were sitting outside on her deck yesterday talking about Dorie Greenspan's Blog (it’s our favorite topic right now because we’re all about Dorie this week. And we’re longtime fans.) Plus, I’m testing recipes for the Today show, which means we’re baking, so naturally we’re using one of Dorie’s books for reference.

 My Mom first got hooked on the blog because Dorie had a really great recipe for cabbage when it was, eat the cabbage or throw the cabbage out, day. I like the blog because Dorie’s life sounds so much better than mine.

"I do too, Kathleen. Write that down. And tell everyone her blog is pretty.” my Mom said, stretched out on her favorite lounge chair gazing up into the sky like a little kid. “Part of me thinks I might be able to have some part of a life like Dorie's.”

Me too. But I'll probably always have to live with the lawnmower guys in the background. I doubt Dorie has to listen to the lawn mower guys when she's putting the finishing touches on her Chocolate Filled Madeleines. But I could improve my life a little bit. I can bake "nearly every day".

Dorie bakes at home "nearly every day" and she's an absolute stick. She lives in New York, Connecticut and Paris. What a lovely way to live. Dorie, if you are reading this, and you ever find yourself in need of a porter slash recipe tester slash kitchen sweep, I work for cake scraps. I forwarded my mom the link to Dorie’s blog and made a promise to myself that things were going to change in my life from that moment on.

Apparently Dorie is the kind of woman that inspires immediate action from her readers because my mother A) ordered her newest book Baking, From My Home to Yours and B) pledged to bake nearly every day. The next morning in the shower, my Mother began to wonder what Dorie did with all those baked goods because when she got out, she called me and asked me if I knew.

Hello Mom, Is That You?

“Kathleen. This is your mother. Do you know what Dorie Greenspan does with all those leftover desserts? She says on her blog that she bakes nearly every day. Do you think she has a large family? She can’t possibly eat all the leftovers herself. She’s very slim. If I’m going to start living like Dorie, I can’t imagine what I’m going to do with all the leftovers. I can’t keep your father out of the refrigerator as it is. Call me back.”

I wonder if my mother will ever leave a message where she doesn’t identify herself. I wonder if she’s waiting until I reach a certain age. Like maybe when I’m 75 she’ll stop saying, “this is your mother”. I wonder what age she felt the need to start telling me she was my mother.

Does she feel that I stopped recognizing her one day? Did I walk right past her into the kitchen one morning, open the fridge door, drink milk from the carton, feel her burning eyes, turn just in time for the lecture, interrupt her opening number with a “Who are you?” blank stare? Did I do that? Has she never recovered?

I don't know Dorie from Maury so I haven’t the faintest idea what Dorie does with her leftovers. The fact that I didn’t have a chance to call my Mom back within 120 minutes of her call (I was in the shower) didn't stop her from getting started.

Without a clear answer as to what she'd do with all the baked goods that would amass in her home, she gathered all the ingredients for a new recipe she'd clipped out of the morning paper, Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies, and started to bake. She was on a roll.

“The only problem is, it's 2:30 in the afternoon and I have a stomachache from tasting too many cookies. I have no interest in fixing dinner and I can't imagine this is how Dorie Greenspan does it. At this rate, I'll look like a Sumo wrestler by the end of the month. I think I'll have to rethink the whole thing.” "Maybe Dorie meant, she cooks nearly every day," I offered.

Or maybe she cooks for a soup kitchen. Maybe she has a bakery in Paris. Or maybe she is the secret owner operator of the world's first all butter, all fat, all bakery, outlet mall. What does she do with all those baked goods? If she makes one recipe for four people seven days a week, that's 28 servings of pastries per week. If they were let's say, spa desserts, they would have a mere 400 calories each. That's 11,200 dessert calories for Dorie.

I’ll be a Snuffaluffagus by Halloween

If my Mother decides to bake nearly every day then I will have to follow suit. Because I will not want to hear about all of the wonderful things she is baking at her house that I can’t eat because I live too far away. Seven miles is not too far away but A) gas is expensive and B) I’m too busy and lazy to walk or ride a bike or drive.

Most dessert recipes yield 8 to 12 and up to 24 and even 48 servings when you're talking about cakes and pies, cookies and bars. So if I really do start baking nearly every day, then I'd end up with an extra 117,200 calories a week to choose from. I’m not saying I would actually eat everything I cooked but baked goods are a lot more appealing than vegetables. For the most part. I’m just saying.

I could donate what I make to soup kitchens. Or Paris bakeries. Or outlet malls low on baked goods. Or I can read Dorie's books and her blogs. And live vicariously through her. Which seems kind of stalkish. And freakish. But it’s all I’ve got right now. Until well, until it’s my turn to travel and write about it.

For now, I’m just thankful she’s sharing her journey’s and recipes. It’s like a vacation without the bills. It’s like eating at the best restaurants without having to leave a tip. Okay, so I have to do all the cooking and clean up. But at least I get to keep all the recipes and they all work. We heart you, Dorie!

Love Is As Gorgeous As Me!

By Maya (5 1/2 years old) and her Auntie,
Kathleen Daelemans

My niece and her Mama and Grandma were playing magnetic poetry yesterday. It's something they've been doing together since Maya was about two years old.

In the beginning, Maya used to try to eat the pieces. Of course she couldn't get them off the board. They were way too tiny and none of her body guards would let her get a piece within an inch of her mouth, let alone off the magnetic board.

When she was about 3, she started recognizing the letters and numbers. And by 4 she knew the entire alphabet, and could count to a hundred.

Maya, Fancy Nancy & the Posh Puppy Go To School

At the age of 5, Maya brought the book, Fancy Nancy and The Posh Puppy, to school for show and tell and read it to her class. It's the story of a little girl, Fancy Nancy, and her love of all things fancy.

In the book when "Nancy's family decides to get a dog, she's certain she can be fancier than ever. After all, a papillon—a small, delicate, fluffy dog—is the ultimate accessory. But her family wants a large, plain dog. How unglamorous!

With Fancy Nancy's trademark humor and warmth, Nancy discovers that real fanciness does not depend simply on appearance but more on a genuine joie de vivre, which is a fancy phrase for having lots of fun." The vocabulary in the book is as sophisticated as the description. And Maya can read it all. With expression. In her voice. And her eyes and in her soul. She understands the words, the drawings and the innuendos.

I asked Maya's Daddy how old she was when she first learned to read,"Gee, I really can't say for sure...it seems like she's always known how. I can't remember when I stopped being surprised when she'd read something off the TV screen. Today she read the word "equipment" without batting an eyelash. "

Love Is...

For those of you unfamiliar with Poetry Magnets, basically you create your own unique poems by arranging magnet word tiles. Maya's Mama and her Grandma stood on one side of the poetry magnet board and Maya sat on a high stool on the other side. Maya stubbornly refused to accept any help and she would not allow anyone to look at her work. The three "little girls" played in silence and giggles with a plate of warm chocolate chip cookies and ice cold glasses of milk for nourishment.

When I stopped by my Mom's yesterday afternoon I noticed the poetry board. There was a signed taped to one side of it and in little girl writing it said, "Do not touch". I asked my Mom about it. She told me the story of the three of them and their afternoon of playing magnetic poetry and then she told me to read Maya's poems.

Shadow is black.

Milk is white.

Chocolate is bittersweet.

Love is red.

Love is as gorgeous as me.

Angel Food Cake Babies

Is she a slice of angel food cake or what? 5 1/2 years old. I can't stand it. I took a picture of the Poetry Magnet board and emailed to everyone I know. Call me an obsessed Auntie. I don't care. I'm having T-shirts made.

The last words of her little poem inspired a few words of my own. They just came spilling out. So I wrote them down till 12:21 am and I'm sure there are a few million typos to prove it.

Remember when you were so young and so happy and so innocent that you ran around dressed up in pink princess dresses with tiaras and beads and bracelets and butterfly wings and big diamond earings singing, "Love is as gorgeous as me?" Do you remember that? Our Mom's did not raise us to forget that! So don't.

Love is Red

Love is as gorgeous as me!
Love is as gorgeous as your daughter.
Love is as gorgeous as your sister.
Love is gorgeous as your mother.
Love is as gorgeous as the child inside you.

Your mother did not raise you to forget that, child.
Your mother did not raise you to lose that love, child.
To harm that love, child.
To dishonor that love, child.

That love gorgeous love?
That gorgeous love you used to tell everyone about?
That gorgeous love you used to share and hand out?
That gorgeous love you that used to rock you to sleep?

That gorgeous love you let them take?
That gorgeous love you let slip away?
That gorgeous love that you betrayed?
That gorgeous love you did not protect?

That gorgeous love? It never went away.
That gorgeous love? It's still inside you.
That gorgeous love? It will awaken.
That gorgeous love? Was never taken.

Blowing Through the Jasmine of My Mind

by Kathleen Daelemans

Is it just me or do you think I'm bitter and petty too? I'm trying not to be jealous of George Clooney's girlfriend for getting all that National attention for a stupid broken toe!

Do you know how many books I could have sold if I got even one of those minutes on National television? I'd probably be booked on Ellen and have Oprah on hold by now.

A broken toe and she gets all that television time? It makes me sick to my stomach. If you add it all up, she's probably gotten the equivalent air time of the longest running mini-series in history.

I wish I could say that I wasn't in the throws of an enormous pitty party. And that I was standing up for people who need that air time. Like all of the lost children and worthy causes out there far more deserving of the audience's time and attention.

But I was just pouting. Pouting about how I and all of the other hard working authors, artists and musicians out there would do just about anything (short of getting on the back of a motorcycle with George Clooney and pureeing our toes) to get publicity for our projects.  Hey, a Girl's Gotta Make a Buck!

Speaking of Ballerina Flats...

...and how to wear them, I found the best answer ever on BlogHer. Someone told me to go to Blogher.com but I don't really get what it is. 

Interview with Chef Kathleen Daelemans (Chef Kathleen Daelemans talks to herself)...

Me to Self: What is Blogher?

Self to Me: As far as I can tell it's one ginormous blog with millions of blogs attached. I've read through the entire, How to Use This Site page, and can't make heads or tails of it.

Me to Self: Is it worth going back to the site despite all the frustration of not really knowing what you're going to find when you get there?

Self to Me: If you're not on deadline and you're not looking for anything specific, it's a good site to visit if you're in need of inspiration, if you want to learn about what's new and cool, if you need a crash course on ballerina flats and if you want to get lost in cyberspace.

Me to  Self: So you'd recommend it?

Absolutely, I'd recommend it. My other favorite things right now: garage sales, sewing class, getting in as many rides as I can on my paddle boat before I have to take it out of the water for the season, apples from the Farmer's market and finishing up Nora Ephron's book, Heartburn. Delicious!

 

The Let's-Do-Lunch, Best Girlfriend's Guide, To Easy Weight Loss

by Kathleen Daelemans

My Mother taught me, among other things, the proper way to iron dress shirts, to always send hand written thank you notes,and to always, always have the makings for chocolate chip cookies in the pantry at all times.

For the most part, I hardly ever eat chocolate chip cookies. But when I do, I make them from scratch. I don't know if it's because I'm suffering from Post Traumatic Sewing Class Stress Disorder (Sunday was my second sewing class ever) or if it's because it's Monday, but I can't get warm chocolate chip cookies off my mind.

It's likely due to the stress of yesterday's class. The first sewing class was worse than standing in front of a stadium full of people singing The National Anthem. Off key. Naked. With my roots showing.

I woke up "hungry" for chocolate chip cookies and haven't stopped thinking about them since I brushed my teeth. I've heard that men fantasize about you know what all day long. And that women fantasize about dark chocolate 200 times a day.

Okay, so none of that's actually fact checked, but I did read an article in the The New York Times that said,  "Although people think they make 15 food decisions a day on average, research shows the number is well over 200."

Skinny Cow Make-over

I have all the ingredients to make chocolate chip cookies right now. In my house. At my disposal. I could be eating warm, gooey, dark-chocolate chip cookies in 14 minutes flat.

Or I could be eating warm, dark-chocolate-chip vanilla ice-cream sandwiches (a family secret recipe).
To prepare: Bake the cookies until they're almost done. In other words, two to three minutes just shy of being thoroughly cooked. Remove to a baking rack and immediately transfer cookies onto individual small round plates.

Place a scoop of the most decadent vanilla bean ice-cream onto the center of each cookie and top with another warm cookie. Serve immediately. If it's a super special occasion or if you've been terribly wronged, drizzle dark chocolate sauce over ice-cream sandwich and top with freshly whipped cream and top with a cherry. Serve.

Cookie Dough. The Other Crack.

The reason I didn't consume 6 heaping spoonfuls of cookie dough, plus 5 warm cookies from the oven, two ice cold glasses of skim milk and a scoop of vanilla ice cream for lunch today is because A) I was too lazy to make them and B) I have standards.

I'm not going down for store bought, mediocre, crappy-tasting cookies made with hydrogenated soybean oil and chocolate flavoring. Therefore, I do not eat crappy-tasting cookies made with hydrogenated soybean oil and chocolate flavoring.

If I'm going to pack on a few pounds, every last bite will be good to the last drop! I refuse to satisfy a craving for chocolate chip cookies with anyth other chocolate chip cookies than my own. Period. Rule # 42 I will not get fat on store bought baked goods.

I'm not breaking my neck on the treadmill for yuk cookies out of a bag, but I'll walk 12 extra miles for my own warm baked cookies. Happily. Well, at least while the house still smells of warm baked cookies. I have lots of these rules and standards and they've helped me take weight off and keep weight off.

Go Organic

Some of the standards I came up with were obvious and came about organically. I cannot get motivated to work off calories consumed in a mindless eating binge. Mostly because I cannot even remember what I've consumed during a mindless eating binge. Particle board? Goose down? I don't know. Rule # 72: Ditch mindless eating binges. No television or computer eating. No eating at the movies. No eating at parties I'm uncomfortable at, no candy jar handfuls, no anything unplanned.

Rule # 81: Accept no substitutes! Only the best will do. When you want great chocolate, eat greatgreat sourdough bread , eat great sourdough bread. The only city I eat sourdough bread in is San Francisco. The only restaurant I'll order a Caesar salad in is the Zuni Cafe. The only scones I eat are made from Judy Rodgers' famous recipe for Cranberry Orange Scones which she graciously shares in The Zuni Cafe Cookbook. If you do not yet own her cookbook and you have not yet tasted her scones, it's no wonder your life is a wreck.  chocolate. When you want

The Balthazar Diet

It's easy to have a positive attitude about  exercise when I'm basking in the afterglow of a delightful lunch of Steak Frites and Warm Chocolate Cake with White Chocolate Ice-cream shared with a best girl friend at Balthazar. La de da. Balthazar. I ate at Balthazar. I've eaten at Balthazar. 

I've been to the bakery three times. I even got chased out to the sidewalk once for taking pictures of the pastries. Big no-no. Everything was just so beautiful I didn't want to forget a single detail. I "could have been trying to steal trade secrets".

I ate in the Balthazar dining room once with my friend, Maureen. We took pictures just like the rest of the Will and Grace fans (only this time I didn't get caught). For those of you who haven't yet eaten there yet, put it on your life list. If for some reason, you never make it to France to experience the bistros, the people and the food, Balthazar can take you there, if only for an afternoon or an evening.

Rule # 1: When in Balthazar, eat freely and have no shame!  When you're in a wonderful restaurant, around your mother's table or dining with with family and friends; on these special occasions, enjoy the people you are with, the conversations you are having, and the food before you.

Your Just Desserts

Do not obsess over calories and picking apart the cuisine. It is an insult to the chefs. And an insult to your person. You deserve to get lost in the experience and lose all track of time. You are the only one who can grant yourself these gifts.

And The Morning After...

Just thinking about having to think about making 200 decisions about food makes me want to stay in bed an extra hour tomorrow morning.

I Heart T.J. Maxx

By Kathleen Daelemans

We Interrupt This Broadcast...

Today was the re-Grand Opening of my old T.J. Maxx. This is almost as exciting as the real Grand opening of my brand new Nordstrom.

It's really very nice of Nordstrom to dedicate an entire store to my family. We're among the first to celebrate their opening with an elegant evening dedicated to all things fashionable and all things Nordies.

Cocktails at Six

To kickoff our private pre-Nordrstrom Grand Opening celebration, my sister Carol and my Mother poured themselves Gin and Tonics. Talitha, (I swear she was a bartender in another life) whipped up one of those perfectly mixed drinks that cause you to forget your name. I had my usual Vodka Martini, straight up, hold the Vermouth, hold the olives. What? I should get fat on vodka flavored mediocre bar olives when there's perfectly good dark chocolate in the world?

Whenever I'm out with my sisters and ask to have my Martini in an icy glass (as opposed to a room temperature one) they swear (again) they're never going out with me. But if I don't make the request at the point of ordering, my drink almost always arrives in a hot glass. Usually right out of the dishwasher tasting of salty dishwater soap. And then I have to send it back and this embarrasses them more.

Which puts more time and distance between the real reason we're having cocktails in a mall; to justify purchasing the super expensive items we have on hold that we know we're going to buy just as soon as we get our blood levels of liquid courage up high enough.

By the time they've finished their first drink, not only have I not even had a sip of alcohol, I've had to listen to them make fun of me for twenty minutes. On top of that, I have no the-alcohol-makes-me-crave-salty-things excuse for having shoveled half a basket of deep fried tortilla chips in my mouth.

Designated Driver?

You don't think we were out drinking, shopping and driving do you? Of course not. We were all in our beds (each in our separate homes) with our laptops and jammies. I had on my Hue Pink and Orange Aloha, Monkey, Capri Pajamas with Matching Orange Tank. Ironed of course. I always iron my pajamas. You want to binge? Binge on ironed pajamas. Now they're delicious! As in 100%, cotton-y, crisp and summer-y, cool no matter what time of year it is.

I suppose it says a lot about us that the opening of a new Nordstrom is well, as significant as any other major holiday. Schedules must be cleared, children must be cared for by someone else and significant others must fend for themselves the day before, the day of and the half day after "The Day".

September 28th is the Grand Opening of our new Nordies and it just so happens to be my Mom's birthday. Of course we're celebrating all day! Breakfast at Nordies...Lunch at Nordies...and then...well, that's "all day" for my Mom. She has dinner at 5:30 and is in her P.J.'s by 6:00 p.m. when she can get away with it. Hopefully we'll find her a cozy new pair.

Nordies Training Camp

I feel that I deserve to be given the penthouse at the Peninsula Hotel in Manhattan. Forever. For free. Just because. I've thought about this for exactly two seconds and I think it's because I love expensive things and I love free things. And who doesn't love the Peninsula Hotel on 5th and 55th? I'm putting this request of the universe in my "Secret" basket.

Those of you who've read The Secret* know what I'm talking about. That Penthouse is mine. Sorry Diddy. If you're not familiar with the book, The Secret , then you're probably a prodigy child under the age of five and have never watched Oprah. It comes on right after Sponge Bob.

In a nutshell, it's a book that teaches you about the Law of Attraction. You get what you create and what you believe you will have. I believe I will have the Peninsula Penthouse (keep checking back). Don't believe me? Let me tell you about my brand new Tumi wheeled carry on luggage!

June 2nd, 2006. 1:36 am. The Scene: The staircase. My house. Me in my pajamas making my way slowly down the stairs with a stack of dirty dishes in one hand (filthy house guests**) and a whole bunch of something else in the other (time is the enemy). My obese cat is two steps ahead of me. It's dark. But I've lived in my house for four years. I'm cool.

Until the cat. stops. dead. As though he's having a cat-food orgasm right there on the staircase. "A squirrel! I want a squirrel for my after-midnight-snack. If she doesn't give me a whole squirrel or at least a chipmunk I'm sending her head-over-girth down the rest of these stairs! She doesn't share her cereal milk and she's never even given me the ice cream spoon so why should I be nice to her? Bitch. I am so done being nice."

Jack and Jill and Me

And down I went. To the bottom of the stairs. Girth over cat and dishes and stacks of stuff. My feet slipped out from under me so my spine took the brunt of the fall. This caused several vertebrae and disks to go on strike. And every single muscle in my body to twist itself tighter than the pie cloths my great grandmother used to wring out to dry after she scrubbed them clean on her washboard. A year and a half later many of my broken parts have refused to come back to work.

Needless to say, the fall changed my life. I'm no longer in the cast of Cirque de Soleil. And I can no longer carry super heavy things like my old favorite briefcase which was falling apart anyway. Maybe because the manufacturers never designed it to fit two laptops (and chargers), The Joy of Cooking, The Cosmo Girls Guide to New Etiquette, three to five (if no Sept Vogue) and up to seven magazines (if no fall or fashion issues), a change of clothes, a cellphone (and charger), an Ipod (and charger), a folder of untouched work, a folder of must complete work and a folder of bills.

No more shoulder briefcase meant I needed a wheel-y briefcase. After researching every single piece of wheeled luggage made, I settled on Tumi and Briggs and Riley. They are both excellent manufacturers of suitcases and briefcases. Their briefcases in particular are beautifully made, well constructed and have excellent warranties. But they were way out of my price range. So I put them in my "Secret" basket and wished for them.

And every single time I went anywhere that might have a Tumi or Briggs and Riley wheel-y briefcase on sale, I looked. I made everyone in my family look. I made everyone check for coupons. If anyone went out of town or out of the country, I made them look for my briefcase. My whole entire family was sick and tired of my begging, pleading and coupon, conniving to get the suitcase they offered to lend me the money. I flatly refused. "That would take all the fun out of it. And B it will take me like forever to pay you back."

16 months of digging through garage sales and T.J. Maxx racks and it happened. The seas finally parted! The duffel bags and carry on luggage fell away and there it was. A Tumi wheeled briefcase for 75% off it's original retail price. The very model I'd been looking for! It was missing an insert. But it turns out I can live without it Santa Claus!

It was so worth the wait. Much more gratifying than putting it on a credit card at a time I couldn't afford it. And the hunt? As much fun as the kill. I have no idea what I'm going to replace my Tumi lust with...Giant...Sigh...

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*The Secret - "Supporters will hail this New Age self-help book on the law of attraction as a groundbreaking and life-changing work, finding validation in its thesis that one's positive thoughts are powerful magnets that attract wealth, health, happiness..."

** No house guests. It was me. Eating at me computer. In the middle of the night. Cookies in fact. I mean fiber cereal.

 

 

All Butter, All Fat, Zero Exercise, Endorphin Highs

By Kathleen Daelemans

I must be doing something right because I've lost four pounds despite my recent tour of New York's finest  bakeries. I was in the city on business but had a few days off in between assignments so I invited my sister Carol to come along. I wanted her to have a really great time. She's the mother of two small children. No one deserves a really good time more than mothers of small children.

The bakery tour wasn't planned. It was an honest to goodness innocent "mistake". We were on our way to Coco Canal Street* in search of three-dollar diamond bracelets and ten dollar "real, all real" Coach and Prada bags.

Anticipating a long day of jewelry shopping, we got up early and did our best to dress like the locals, who, try as they might, will never be able to duplicate our Midwest fabulousness. Not a JayWal* in site. Which translates quite simply to no off-the-rack clearance Mizrahi, no holiday sweaters with Snowman scenes and no three seasons ago a-n-y-t-h-i-n-g.

But thanks for having coffee shops on every corner and ten-dollar manicures. We'll be the butt of your jokes and you keep raising the standards of food and drink. McDonalds now proudly serves Lattes, Applebees has hired a celebrity chef and Wolfgang Puck is opening a restaurant in Detroit.

Anyway we dressed head to toe black everything because that's what New Yorkers wear. Black, black, black. I've thought a lot about this and have concluded that most New Yorkers wear black because:

A) Most people prefer to sleep on beds. A washer and dryer means there's no room for a bed.  No one will know if you wear the same black pants every day for a month straight. But everyone will know if sleep even one night on top of a washer.

B) Coffee stains as a result of (among other things) a subway engineer not drinking coffee go undetected on black. It's perfectly normal to slam on the breaks at every stop when you've just awakened from a twenty year coma and found yourself at the helm of a subway car on someone else's route at rush hour. Completely. Normal. 

C)  To make rent. Remember Sharon Stone and the infamous Gap T-shirt that was good enough for the red carpet?

D) To hang with Kimora Lee Simmons. New black looks rich. You can hang with anyone with the right accessories.

     Besides our Mac Girl-About-Town pretty pink lipstick and our Opi Can't-a-Berry-Have-Some-Fun? Toenail polish we were standard issue boring black.We didn't even put on makeup. Well of course I did because I don't go a-n-y-w-h-e-r-e without it.

     God forbid I have a heart attack in the middle of the night. I have a purse size edition of my will and white out on me at all times. I can fill in anyone's name at any time with my eyes closed. He who does not apply (at the very least) Laura Mercier Rosewater lip color, a splash of Pink-Gold Metallic Eye Creme and enough mascara to honor Tammy Faye Baker will not, I repeat will not, be in the running for any of my fabu-locity once I'm gone.

     Certainly none of my worldly possessions. Not my cookbook collection (many of which are signed, and no I'm not bragging, well maybe just a little), not my crap jewelry collection, none of my fake handbags (all gorgeous), none of my furniture (mostly no cat hair at all) and none of garden finials. You will. be sorry. for that one.  

Butter the New Prozac?

So anyway it's not my fault we ended up in a bakery that uses higher fat European butter in absolutely every pastry, muffin and loaf of bread they make fresh each and every day when I was only looking for a decent cup of coffee?

It was the closest place to our hotel except for the two Starbucks we passed and the one place that said "Cafe" that was supposed to be Cannes chic and famous with the model set but who wants to eat breakfast staring at parchment paper thin models.

I don'€™t want to know what six foot tall 15 year olds eat for breakfast and I don'€™t need to be reminded that six foot tall 15 year olds are being hired by companies marketing their products to me by placing ads in magazines I buy. It makes me want to cancel my subscriptions and boycott the products. 

It'€™s offensive that Nordstrom thinks I want to see what my clothes look like in size double zero on pre-pubescent girls before I consider buying them. I want to know what lovely women look like in the clothes they're marketing to me.

And who got the editors of the women's fitness magazines together and told them, we their faithful, intelligent, readers want to learn about health and wellness while looking at parchment paper models (too young to baby-sit) dressed in shoestring tube tops and skimpy minis the editors think we should chuck our business suits for and wear to work?

The Most Important Meal of the Day

My sister and I walked right past the child models into the European Butter Bakery smack in the middle of Union Square. We were greeted with a heavenly blast of real-butter-smell.

You know how when you walk into a spa and you're immediately taken by the soothing atmosphere, the scent of super expensive candles, the sounds of lush fountains and soft music? And you know how your body just starts to relax right away as though you walked into another universe? This was like that only my body was post massage limp on the first inhale.

Thankfully I dutifully remembered to practice my Pilates breathing technique. I took a slow deep breath allowing the real-butter-smell to flow sequentially into my upper chest and expand into my sides, my diaphragm, my back (fat), my abs and pelvis.

The proper Pilates exhale is the opposite of the proper Pilates inhale. You're supposed to let your breath out slowly and purposefully. I cheated and let mine out with the force of my Spanx** being released from another long day of duty so I could get as much butter smell into my lungs as fast as possible.

The Secret
Right then and there in front of all the skinny New York beautiful people in line for warm pain au chocolat (minis) and triple-organic-soy-whip-eco-moch-a-chinos I experienced the most intense endorphin high of my life. I know Oprah thinks she discovered The Secret, but I discovered The Secret. Bake with real butter, eat and repeat.

We visited the real butter bakery several times during our visit but we didn't gain an ounce and in fact we lost weight because in between the work we were doing in the city and the dark chocolate brownies we couldn't live without we walked every minute. And I mean every minute.

We were staying in Union Square. We walked to, Soho, Greenwich Village, China Town, Little Italy, Tribeca, Battery Park, Harold Square, Rockefeller Plaza and heaven knows where else. We didn't always take the most direct route either. I was the map-reader. I cannot read maps. I pretended we were always supposed to be wherever it was we ended up. Ten more blocks I'd cheerfully say any time my sister looked the least bit suspicious.

The Miracle Brownie Diet

There is no miracle. We knew we had to burn more calories than we consumed. We wanted the brownies but we weren't willing to gain weight over them. We made the commitment to walk off the excess calories the day we consumed them. We supported each other. We were accountable to each other and we made it fun. Hello brownies. Hello blisters. Bye Bye belly.

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* Coco Canal Street

**Jay-Wal: Swanky discount chain stores (T.J. Maxx, Target( Tar-jay) and or Walmart) capable of curing all forms of moderate to severe depression, boyfriend problems, work issues, decorating faux pas and wardrobe malfunctions. 

** Spanx: Modern day girdle. Can shrink you two sizes in two minutes. Requires Cirque de Soleil skills and Jim Carey dexterity to maneuver on. Avoid witnesses. The distribution of fat during the dressing process may be harmful to children. Viewer discretion advised.

The Emmy Rib Roast

by Kathleen Daelemans

I Saw Ribs People

If MTV Cribs crashed the homes of all the actors attending Awards Shows and shot the contents of their refrigerators while they were stuck in their seats, I'm thinking (collectively) there wouldn't be enough food to make a snack.

People who live in L.A. don't eat. I think it's a city ordinance. Must love dogs, plastic surgery, recycling, yoga, Farmer's Markets, starving, sex, lies and videotapes. With the exception of those seen "dining" at the Ivy*, everyone else caught engaging in the despicable act of chewing is quite obviously, a tourist. 

God knows what lines the shelves of L.A. Grocery stores. You won't be hit with the smell of fresh baking bread when you walk in the door of a Hollywood market, that's for sure. I guess you grab a cart and stroll aisles and aisles of crackers, breath mints and exotic bottled waters. I'd bet my next order of French Fries there are no deli counters, meat counters, cheese displays and ice cream freezers.

I'll Have The Water Bisque With a Side of Three Oyster Crackers Please   

No wonder Wolfgang Puck cooks for all those award shows every year. It's pure profit. The only real cooking he has to do, is prepare the beauty shots (a few sample plates of what the celebs will be served) for all the Tele-paparazzi news shows like Entertainment Tonight, Access Hollywood and Extra.

On Red Carpet night, instead of cooking enough food to feed the invited guests, all he has to do is circulate a staff of crisp servers to make sure guests have plenty of champagne. 

I'm not saying they don't eat because they're dying to be thin. Or they feel pressure to be thin. Or they're in pissing matches to be thinner than everyone else on set or they're trying to revive their careers. Maybe those are the reasons and maybe not.  

Maybe they don't eat on Gala nights because their dresses are borrowed. "Hello, Mr. Badgley? Oh, I beg your pardon. Mr. Mishka. I'm terribly sorry to disturb you but I wanted to call you in advance to apologize in person. There's been an accident. I had a craving for hot wings last night. So there's a little spot. Well a sort of really big spot of red sauce on the lap part of the dress. You know, that part in the middle where if you were pregnant and showing, the baby would be. I tried to get it out with bottled water and a paste I made out of soda crackers but it didn't work. Mr. Mishka? Mr. Mishka? Are you still there?"

 
Give up Magnolia Bakery German Chocolate Cake?

Last night on the red carpet Giuliana DePandi interviewed Hollywood actresses on what they did to stay so thin. After listening to suspicious answer after suspicious answer...Okay, Okay, perhaps the actresses who said things like, "I've always been like this" and "...You just have to diet and work hard..." were quoting lines or something.

Whatever. I just don't buy it. If losing weight was as easy as some Hollywood women make it out to be, every woman in America would be wearing Armani couture. Julia Louis-Dreyfus, my new old hero, said , "I don't eat. I have no fun..." Giuliana asked her what she'd eaten before the red carpet and Julia replied, "egg whites".

I applaud Julia for telling the truth. It's refreshing and brave and responsible. What she basically said is, if you want her body, you have to give up everything fun. And you have to eat egg whites. When Julia says she gives up everything fun, I'm thinking she doesn't eat Tabasco flavored Cheetos or warm Ham and Gruyere Croissants and definitely no German Chocolate cake from the Magnolia Bakery.

There's no doubt about it. Julia was stunning on the red carpet last night. And her career seems to be on fire! To me, she's looked beautiful at every single weight I've ever seen at her at on television. My support for her work has never wavered. And I can honestly say I've never thought to myself, "Geez, Julia's really been packing on the pounds or WOW, Julia's really skinny".

Does This Celery Stick Make Me Look Fat?

In fact, until I got super disgusted at all the ribs sticking out on half the female celebrities last night and all the stupid "confessions" actresses blurted out in the confession camera one of the Entertainment shows had rigged on the Red Carpet,"I had a piece of pizza" and "I ate half a turkey sandwich", (dirty sinners) I've never even thought about Julia Louis Dreyfus' weight.

But now, she's my new old hero. Because she's a great actress. And she's funny and honest. Not because she noticed me once. And waved a huge hello to me one afternoon once-upon-a-long-time-ago when I lived and cooked in Santa Barbara. I was just finishing up a long run on the beach in Montecito. Julia was on her back porch holding a newborn baby. Or maybe it was a toy baby doll wrapped in a blanket. I suppose she could have been rehearsing for a role...

Anyway when I walked by, just as I looked up, she waved hello and smiled. It was a beautiful smile. I said "Hello" and "It couldn't be a nicer day". It was the kind of smile I've not forgotten. Not because she's famous. I didn't realize it was Julia Louis-Dreyfus until much later. In fact, the rest of my way home was one of those, I-know-I-know-her, exercises in do-I-have-early-on-set-Alzheimer's futility. 

It was just one of those perfect Montecito days; a brilliant sunny morning. The last of the fog was hovering just above the ocean's spray. The tide was low. And the weather was ideal, which in Santa Barbara means no winter rain and no Santa Anna winds. The surfers were out and the dolphins were in.  At certain times of the year, the dolphins come in close to the shore. Just before the waves crest and wash up onto your toes, you can see the dolphins in the break. They travel in little groups. Criss crossing the bay as though they're on criss-crossing-the-bay duty.

I don't know what it's like to be under the kind of pressure actors are under. But I'm no stranger to television (uh hello, I watch it while I'm waiting and waiting for my next series to launch) so I do feel the pain. I do not sit in judgment of those who wish to or feel forced or compelled to diet dangerously. I'm no stranger to the pain, shame and humiliation that accompanies eating disorders. But I'm tight with the whole "just say no" concept.

There are many, many resources available for free to help anyone get out of any kind of crisis they're in no matter how famous or un-famous they are and no matter how embarrassed or ashamed they may feel. How do I know? How do you think I know?

P.S. Hollywood, if you're listening, we watch actors  for their work.

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* If you're career's in the pits, put an enormous amount of energy into your outfit, hair and make-up, book a seat on the patio at the Ivy restaurant, order a salad, feign eating, show some cleavage and try to spill your food onto a celeb's lap. You're sure to end up in the tabs the next day and land a role inside of a week.

 

The Mallomar Spa is Not All it's Cracked Up to Be

by Kathleen Daelemans

The only good thing about going through bad things, is no one really expects very much of you. I, of course, expect myself to perform at my usual type A, speed-of-light, maximum capacity, caffeinated, race pace.

But so far today, I've read half an article in my new Oprah Magazine, chased my cat through the neighbors yard, and added a whole two sentences to the book proposal I'm working on.

However, if I finish reading the latest issue of The Oprah Magazine, I'll have everything I need to live my Best Life which is why probably what's wrong with me in the first place. I've been subscribing to the magazine since the first issue came out and I've never read more than half an article.

But today's the day. I'm going to learn how to "Do What I Love". I'm going to "Find it. Go for it. And live Creatively ever after." It's the cover story and I'm determined to finish it.

Compound Dress Fractures

This is truly one of those days I don't know what to do with myself. It's post, Class A, Whopper, life-trauma #34, day 9. I can read Oprah, I can count dust balls or I can choose to be two-pints-of-ice-cream depressed and spend the day at the Mallomar spa. Or splurge and spend the week there. Which means I'll spend the next month, with compound dress fractures and low self-esteem.

Lucky for me, after I learn how to "Do What I Love and "Live Creatively Ever After" (and I believe that I will) Oprah's going to teach me how to "Melt Off The Pounds" with "The Fastest-Working Workout...We're (they're) Not Kidding)" I sure hope not. The older I get, the less time I have to lose those last ten pounds.

Buckets of Money!

I'm mentally running through my stack of totally cute thank you cards and simultaneously trying to decide if Gayle King (Oprah's best friend) likes pinks or plaids, poodles or prints. After all, she's the Editor at Large and there's a "Fall Shopping Handbook" in this issue! Get In! Get Out! Look Fabulous! Save Buckets of Money!"

If I could style myself the way I style plates in the kitchen I'd be Donna Karen chic, Bobby Thomas gorgeous and Laura Mercieer made up and ready to go every morning. But I can't. Case in point - my niece refused to let me take her for her hair appointment the other day until I changed my shoes. "Um, no offense Aunt Kathy, but I'm not getting in the car until you take those off. They're gross. They don't go. And your pants are too short."

Bring Back Garanamals!

This year I'm determined to figure out how to wear footless tights. I bought a pair last month. They're positively the cutest. And they're hanging in my closet. With the price tags still on them. Next to an orange leather skirt I picked up in Toronto two years ago for 99 bucks. It sounds ghastly, an orange leather skirt, but I swear it's really cute. And I haven't worn it once.

I love fashion. I love accessories. I love jewelry. I love shopping. I love purses. I appreciate beautiful craftsmanship. I love the feel of beautiful fabrics. I know what I like when I see it. But don't ask me to put together a look. That's what stylists and the winners of Project Runway are for.

But now that Gayle's saving me buckets of money and giving me the 411 on starting over, high speed weight loss and fall fashions, I'm confident I can pull together the right looks for my brilliant next career and the happily-creative-ever-after love affair I plan on having in my cute new healthy body. I've got all my eggs in Oprah's basket and I don't want any back. 

The Pedicure, Godiva Dark Chocolate Pearl, Coconut Gelato, Sewing Cure

By Kathleen Daelemans

If Oprah Winfrey is related to Elvis Presley, it's safe to say the rest of us can trace our roots back to Jerry Springer.¹

Another life crisis blew through here last Tuesday. The kind of catastrophe that hurls one at the speed-of-light into a stratosphere of red-hot, raw pain. The grief is so deep, the characters so unfamiliar and the circumstances so unreal, that none of what's still unfolding can possibly have anything to do with me. 

Please pass the vodka, it's a wrap!

Yanked out of (my) Mayberry and cast into someone else's life, is the only explanation and begs the question,  Where's the nearest emergency exit? I. Want. Out. Next to pilled polyester, distressing emotional "issues" are my least favorite thing.

I'm all for a good sob as long as it's on someone else's behalf. Look, I'd be suspended in the air high over Vegas and the lead in Cirque de Soleil if I had any desire whatsoever of facing the emotional junk in my trunk.

Comfort me with diamonds, and pearls and gifts. But PLEASE don't comfort me with tired old cliche^_'s. 

You don't get to be 40 something and fab-you-scrumptious without losing a loved one or five. Every time I'm smack in the middle of grief, intellectually speaking, I know I'll "get over it", I know "things will get better", and I know "time heals all wounds". I'm a walking band aid. And I've been on the elevator of hopelessness next to all the other walking wounded.

In my darkest hours, I'm not thinking about people who "have it worse". So please don't tell me about the lady whose husband died on the way home from work and left her with 16 small children and four food stamps. I don't want to hear about starving children, the Aids epidemic or genocide.

I know I'm not the only one "suffering". QVC Item Number H-973 dash 71, Set of Three Woven Pumpkin Baskets, just sold out. I’m not asking for sympathy, that’s what Godiva Dark Chocolate Pearls are for.2  I know I’ll "get through" this or scrap booking wouldn’t be an industry.

Exactly one week later

I'm back at my desk. My computer screen is exactly as I left it. In the middle of a mediocre article I thought brilliant at the time. I'm five pounds lighter and not ready to talk about any of it. Except for some of it.

But I'm not the same person. I took a sewing class. Not willingly. My Mother and sister signed me up for it. "You'll love it". "It's fate! There's only one spot left!" I have about as much aptitude for sewing as I do for auto mechanics. But I knew they wouldn't let me out of the store until I was enrolled in Beginner's Skirts.

Once I got used to the idea, I thought sewing would be a lot more fun than therapy. And a lot cheaper. But $263.00, 4 hours of frustration and humiliation later, I have a call in to Blue Cross Blue Shield to see if they'll pay for the old fashioned kind of therapy.

Planet of the Eighths

The picking out the fabric part was fun. I chose a stunning deep, charcoal gray, shear, floral, wool and a posh, black lining. I'm making a skirt. Well, I was making a skirt. Now, I'm donating sixty dollar a yard fabric to the Salvation Army.

When it came time to check the pattern's measurements for accuracy, which you Super-Sewers know, requires lots and lots of fractions, I started figuring out where the nearest emergency exit was.

I don't know fractions from fiction. The only way I could win my own Project Runway was to do what I always do when I encounter the unfamiliar (but most go on), I invent my own system.

I know how to add 1/4 cup of Ben and Jerry’s Jamaican Me Crazy Ice Cream with 1/4 cup of Coconut Gelato but I can’t add, divide, subtract or multiply three eighths and five eighths or any fraction whatsoever if my next hair cut-and-color depend on it. 

To be clear, I cannot look at a ruler and tell you where the five-eighths, three eights or any eighths mark is, but I’ve managed to get through life so far (quite successfully I might add)3 which proves whoever invented the whole eighths-system-fiasco, came up with something completely and totally unnecessary. I rounded everything to the nearest quarter and finished first.
 
Kath Math

When the class instructor came around to check my work you would have thought she discovered a naked man under the table. "Appalled" hardly comes close to what I think she was thinking.

Despite having seen a naked man under my table, she was actually very polite. In fact she is so polite, prim, proper and perfect I think she's probably a descendant of Emily Post. She’s just got that Miss Manners way about her.

With a prim, proper, polite, slight tilt of her head and an odd bend of her neck she remarked rather pointedly, "I've never had a student arrive at such a curious set of measurements."

Baffled at her baffled-ness and sensing I wasn’t her star student, I cheerfully offered, "I rounded my numbers to the nearest quarters.”4  She took a deep breath and put on her best Brie Van de Kamp smile, “You can’t do that”.

I'm pretty sure her breakfast came back up right then and there. Green tea, one medium size soft boiled egg, two slices of dry, gluten free toast. She tapped her upper chest nervously as though she was releasing 7 up bubbles from her esophagus one by one.

"Really?" I asked. And then, trying to make light of things, I asked as delicately as possible, "Does it really matter that much if my skirt is a little bigger than it’s supposed to be? Sometimes I eat too much." This went over about as well as her second breakfast and 7 Up chaser.

"Of course it does. Rules are rules.” I’m pretty sure that’s what she said. She said it backwards. With her perfectly fitted, McCalls Pattern # 2029, 2 Hour, A Line Skirt, facing the class. Her stocking seems? Perfectly aligned.

Twisting on her delicious, Donald J Pliner Coy Pumps, "I suggest you get a math tutor in between class sessions. And it might help if you make a duplicate skirt on your own time so you can catch up with the rest of the students."

Miss Brie didn't come around to my station again so she didn’t see how when it was time to cut the fabric, I accidentally cut the ass clear off my pattern. I put “practice not cutting ass off” on my sewing-class-homework to-do list for this week too.

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1 = In her 20th season premiere, Oprah announced that she’s related to Lisa Marie and Elvis Presley. You’ll have to Google it. I’m too busy with sewing class homework to fact find.

2 = I told you there’s no product placement here. I just happen to love Godiva Dark Chocolate Pearls. Sometimes I can even make a little tin last more than ten minutes.

3 = So far I've only had to move back home once in the last ten  years.

4 = You have my permission to laugh at me as long as you buy my books. See, A Girl’s Gotta Make a Buck.

I Pledge Allegiance to Ferris Bueller and Lorna Doone

By Kathleen Daelemans

I'm working diligently at putting my winter weight back on. It's the only exciting thing about the end of summer.

The getting-to-eat-more part because the-clothes-are-baggy-and-will-hide-it season lasts a good seven months around here and I plan on enjoying it.  The have-to-work-it-off part? Well, that's a drag.

My mother made her famous baked beans yesterday. From Scratch. Worth all the extra cardio I have to work in this week.*

I've always maintained the importance of being passionate about welcoming aboard any new fat. Because unless and until you're willing to do the work to burn off calorie overages, you and your new fat are stuck together until sweat do u part. So either shut your trap or be kind to yourself and go BFFF (Best Fat Friends Forever) with your new pooch.

Sometimes extra weight can cause one to develop a mild or severe case of CCO (Credit Card Obesity).  Retail therapy within your financial means solves everything. Retail therapy beyond the boundaries of your household budgets is I-N-S-A-N-I-T-Y to the hundredth power. There are other ways to feel Thanksgiving full.

Spray painting your yard furniture. And your driveway. Canary yellow. For instance (accident). But thank goodness GOD protects children and idiots...

You're-Not-Doing-it-Right

I have the cutest wrought iron garden furniture in the world. Four shabby chic, organic-butter-yellow chairs and a matching glass-topped table with daisy embellishments, circa 1940's fabulous. I got the lot at a junk store five years ago. It was love at first sight. We're a match made in heaven.

My whole neighborhood loves them. At least in the Novella I'm currently starring in, You Have The Cutest Yard in The Whole Entire Community. All my neighbors stop by and compliment me on my perfectly manicured, cottage-y gardens, my adorable table and chairs and my cute outfits. So. Not. True.

Yesterday, I went to Home Depot, got some spray paint, went home and gathered up my tools. I got a bucket of hot water, some oxy clean, nail polish remover (it kind of gets spray paint out of your hair and off underarm flab), some wash cloths, a steel brush, my cat, water for my cat, water for me and my ipod stereo (which I forgot to turn on) because I don't know how. I grabbed my phone (to call my Dad, the master spray paint champion of the mid-west and slash the You're-Not-Doing-it-Right reinforcer, self-esteem, self-confidence-booster man).

I washed the chairs until they were blemish free. I sanded off all the peeling paint and smoothed out the globs of paint aka yellow garden chair cellulite. I spread out my $1.97 Home Depot*** drop cloth, and with the precision of a two year old, I painted the furniture piece by piece. Chair by Chair. Table leg by table leg.

Just as I finished donating all my blood to the mosquitoes in Southern Michigan, I finished painting. I put my tools away and called it a night.

Dirt + sand + wind + yellow paint + You're-Not-Doing-it-Right = Nouvelle Spray Paint Furniture Art.   

I woke up this morning and couldn't wait to go outside and see how the furniture looked. Because you can't really tell the day you do it.  I ran downstairs in my pajamas, made my coffee, scooped up my kitten (borderline overweight, full grown male cat) and went out to the garden. This was the big reveal. The moment of truth. Did I ruin the World's Cutest Garden Furniture? Or do I have my father's spray painting genes?

Property of Chief Crazy Girl's

I've seen lots of spray painted furniture. But never any with mummified cricket inlays. Nor a chair back with painted over full length feathers. Did I have my eyes closed? How did I miss full length feathers and live insects?

The sequel to, You Have The Cutest Yard in The Whole Entire Community,  is You are the Cutest Neighbor in the Whole Entire World. I got the part. In this novella, all my neighbors love me (of course). And they love all of my cottage-y gardens. And my adorable 1940s wrought iron furniture with daisy embellishments. And my cute outfits. Same song second verse kind of thing.

In real life I'm pretty much in a whole heap of hot compost. I'm thinking my neighbors are going to make a big stink about my new yellow driveway. And the two dollar drop cloth that's stuck to parts of my new yellow driveway. I wonder if Nail polish remover comes in 50 gallon drums.

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* Baked beans? Are you kidding? Please. It was the pineapple coconut gelato times three portions that I had for dessert.  

** Insert image of me sitting at my computer wearing an off-the-clearance-rack (Target) white cotton, ruffle, triple tiered, drawstring, mini skirt ($10.00) with a pink cotton, floral, baby doll tank ($7.00 from the Maxx) eating Lorna Doone's and not keeping count. Kitty cat sleeping between the keyboard and empty water bottles.

What? I've had the stomach flu. For the second time in a month. A real soccer Mom told me there's some funky parasite going around. More than you wanted to know I'm sure. But I'm giving you the back story for my Ferris Bueller excuse so you understand why I get to eat Lorna Doone's until I feel better. Or rather, how it is I've justified this latest round of crap eating.

*** There are no sponsors on this website. There is no product placement (well except my books). And I'm not being paid to plug any product whatsoever. I pay for the blog and the artwork. If this changes, I'll let you know.

My Ben and Jerry's Apple Pie Hole

                                                                                                                                                          

                     

by Kathleen Daelemans

The worst part about this whole fall thing is that I just lost my winter weight. I can finally fit into my favorite shorts. I might have fit into them a week earlier but I just found them.  I'm almost done with my Spring Cleaning . 

On the bright side, I can't wait to eat bread again.  I already know what I'm having. Sourdough toast with room temperature  REAL (salted) butter. Bring it on.

I want real sourdough bread. No impostors. The toast will be golden on both sides. The butter will be at room temperature and standing by. If you have to chase all over the house for the butter than the bread gets cold and you've wasted perfectly good calories on cold bread with cold butter and this my friend, is the beginning of unnecessary winter weight.

Maintaining weight loss is no picnic but who has time to cry over spilled chocolate milk when carb season is here! Insert picture of happy dancing girl.

You can't fight Mother Nature. Autumn is upon us. Fall means ample portions. Soups, stews, cornbread and honey. Loser clothing. Larger portions. Shorter days. Earlier bed times. Less moving around. Yum.

I have no problem making the exact same promise I make with every heavenly bite of whatever it is I have no business eating:

--I, Kathleen Daelemans, Culinary Fashionista and Diet Queen of Denial, solemnly swear to workout extra for everything extra I always eat (sort of like Wimpy -"I'll gladly pay you Tuesday for a Hamburger Today") --

But I'll be a damsel in distress if I'm going to give up scrumptious time in the pedicure chair for hard time on the treadmill over cold toast. Won't happen.

The Boring Food Miracle Diet

In fact, I've managed to keep a lot of weight off just by not eating things that aren't what I wanted them to taste like. For instance, we had our annual ice cream social last week. It's an event to raise money for our local Garden Club.

Ladies bake beautiful cakes each trying to out do the other. The cakes are set out on long tables in front of our community center. Generous amounts of Old Fashioned ice-cream (or so I thought) are served with each slice of cake. The event is 100% pure Americana and not to be missed.

Of course I went through the cake line twice. Culinary research and all.
The first pass I had the German Chocolate Cake. It was everything I wanted it to taste like. Moist chocolate cake with the perfect amount of toasted coconut and pecan frosting.

After inspecting the cake, I took a bite of the ice cream. Mmm. I put some cake on my fork and dragged it through the ice-cream mmm...Heaven. Just as I was about to have my third giant mouthful of vanilla ice-cream, my neighbor Conor*,a gorgeous 21 month old little boy who doesn't believe in using spoons, grabbed a fistful of ice-cream from his bowl.

He was stung by a bee on his teeny tiny chocolate ice-cream covered hand. He let out a wail that stopped 300 people in their tracks. Long story short, Conor isn't allergic to bees and he still likes ice-cream.

Less important, I realized the ice cream I was busy shoveling into my Ben and Jerry's Apple Pie hole, was crap. Guar gum, artificially flavored, fake vanilla crap. And I was getting fat on it.

It didn't taste good. I wanted it to taste good. But it didn't taste good. I was caught up in the moment. The ice-cream social. My family and friends. The lake. The warm weather. The tables filled with delicious cakes. Buckets of ice cream. No nutrition labels. My voice of reason must have been bound and gagged in a dark cellar somewhere.

The point is, if something doesn't taste like you really, really want it to taste, put the fork down and back away from the table. And you will lose weight. You will not always have the ability to re-order or go out and get what you were hoping to have.

I've learned there are certain things you shouldn't even try to eat anyplace else other than their place of origin or where you know they're going to be worth spending four extra hours on the treadmill for.

I only eat cookies if I make them (so not a big baker). I only have dark chocolate if it's an artisan chocolate. I only have beer in Seattle (I don't drink beer but I thought this looked next to the potato chip example). I only eat potato chips if I make them (if it takes me 12 hours to post one blog do you think I'm making home made potato chips?)

I'm guessing on average not eating food that doesn't taste as good as I want it to taste together with my kooky rules keep off at least 100 pounds a year. Which should make me feel really great when I take out my shorts next May and I can't squeeze into them again. Right?

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*C-o-n-o-r is the Irish spelling. And yep, he's got the Irish blood in him and the temperament to prove it.

 

Your Brain on Lettuce Leaves

                                                               

by Kathleen Daelemans

Did you see the Larry King Live episode with the Biggest Loser winners? They've gained weight. Surprise.

The focus was on the new season. But all I could focus on was how uncomfortable the winners were. You know, like when you think a pair of Spanx will make the two-sizes-too-small pair of pants you're planning on wearing to your sister's surprise party, suddenly fit?

So you put on the size B Spanx, knowing full well you should have purchased the size C Spanx. Stubbornly, you get out the pants, lay down on your bed, inhale, take out your pink bedazzled pliers, yank up the pants, stand up, exhale and waddle over to a mirror.

Without looking below your neck, you decide the pants look great so off you go to the party. With every sip of a cocktail you look thinner. You're the Belle of the Ball on a timer. Your exit has to be exactly sixty seconds before the pain of sucking it in becomes more than the pain of your fake Manolos. Take off your shoes and you immediately gain 15 pounds. Letting it out? Exhaling? IN FRONT OF ALL THOSE PEOPLE? Not an option.

Anyway.This was that moment for the contestants. They were head-to-toe in their own versions of Spanx stuffed birthday-party-pants on Larry King Live.
One of the uncomfortable Biggest Loser winners used the old baby-on-the-lap strategy to hide her gorgeous body. What? It was.

She told the whole world she wants to lose 40 pounds. She doesn't have 40 pounds to lose. Her husband had his hands on his lapels as though he was a Chippendale dancer about to rip them off and launch into his first number.

They all looked and acted as though they were ashamed to have gained weight since the show ended. I don't know about you but I didn't think any of them were going to go home and work out five hours a day and diet like they were trying to look good on television and win $250,000, did you?

Reverend Moon Has Left the Building

Open comment to the BL Winners that were on Larry King Live: "None of you needed to apologize for anything. You were brainwashed." Hollywood trainers train actors and actresses. They get actors and actresses ready for roles which usually includes losing weight and or bulking up in a short amount of time by extreme exercising and or extreme dieting.

The Biggest Loser has a shooting schedule of 4 months. Dramatic weight loss equals dramatic ratings. Who better than Hollywood trainers to lure innocent, vulnerable, overweight, hopefuls, into thinking they have a chance at having a Hollywood body, than Hollywood trainers who totally "get" the ratings game.

If the Biggest Loser was really about helping people they'd get in some real experts. There are plenty out there who have the glitz and glamor factor and the resume to provide America with the tools they need to achieve the health they deserve. But NBC has bills to pay too.

Personally, I can't stand the show. It makes me hungry. Here's the take away I get from the Biggest Loser: If you're fat, you're worthless. The only way to lose weight is to hike the Himalayas and dine on popcorn peanuts.

This is Your Brain. This is Your Brain on Lettuce Leaves.

The Biggest Loser is tabloid TV at it's best or they wouldn't have hired Hollywood trainers. Think about it, we buy magazines with skinny, pretty, rich and scandalous on the cover.  You get what you tune in for. The Biggest Loser is the miracle diet pill of television. Take it or toss it.

Here's my advice to anyone who "hates" their body: Go to the nearest cancer center. Or the nearest Veterans hospital. Spend the day. Observe. Get to know someone. Sign up to volunteer. Go for a week or a month or for the rest of your life.

Go home. Get naked. Look in the mirror. If you truly cannot be thankful and happy enough to do the Happy Dance in honor of every single bump, bulge, limb and working body part you have, than get help.

You deserve it. You deserve happiness. You deserve to know what it feels like to feel underwear-model-happy about the skin you're in (though I suspect most underwear models don't know how lucky they are). Life is too short to waste another minute hating the miracle that serves you day in and day out.

Five Star Burnt Chicken

by Kathleen Daelemans

If "TypePad’s ease of use enables you to create a blog in minutes..." how come it takes me 12 hours to launch a single post. At this rate, I'll have to give up my career.

My Mother isn't even convinced I've had a paying job since she stopped driving me to and from Dunkin Donuts back when I was in high school (let us not forget where Madonna got her start ladies and gentlemen).

The Setting: Me in my positively comfortable bed in a delicious sleep like all normal people at 6:00 a.m.

Phone ringing.

Ring.

Ring, ring, ring.

Oh-my-gawd-the-freaking-phone-is-ringing and-i-know-it's-my-mother!

And oh, lookie lou, it's still dark outside.

Disgusted, I force my heart rate to settle back down to race pace and concentrate on the spider web in the corner of my ceiling over my headboard. I will myself to think of all the wonderful things she does. She really is the best Mom. No, for real. For real for real.  

Me: Deep breath. Smile lovingly inside and ACTION! "Hi Mom."

Mom: Kathleen this is your Mother. (This, just in case I'd forgotten overnight the name of the woman who gave me life, the name of the woman whose supported me all these years, yada yada yada...)

Are you up?

Me: Yes. Of course I'm up, Mom. I had breakfast, did an hour of yoga, mowed the lawn, trimmed the tea roses and added 10 pages to the blog.

Mom: To the blog? What is this blog? Is someone paying you to do this?

Me: No Mom, I don't get paid.

Mom: Then stop wasting your time. How are you going to pay your mortgage?

Me: People get book deals from blogs now Mom. Blogs are a way to build and keep your audience. They're a way to stay in touch with your fans. But I'm totally freaking out because I have no idea what I'm doing. It's like I've been hired to co-write "Blogging for Idiots" because I'm the idiot half.

The hosting site I picked based on all the "rave reviews" it got is supposed to be "super easy". And if you call getting a post up in 12 hours flat, kicking ass, it is super easy and I'm the Queen of the blog-o-sphere.

Mom: You're the Aging Queen, Dear. Don't be so hard on yourself.

Me: It's like trying to learn how to time the turkey and the side dishes. When I get the pictures sized, the headlines fall off the article. When I get the content loaded the photographs disappear.

Mom: I'm sure your fans will understand. Just call them both and tell them what's going on and how long you think it will be before you can get Humpty Dumpty back together again. 

What are you going to write about today?

Me: I ...

Mom: I know! You can write about your underwear and how you're much too old to be wearing low rise jeans with your underwear sticking out of them no matter how "in" anybody says they are!

Me: I cannot believe you just said that. I love those jeans I had on yesterday...

Mom: I don't care how much you love them! No one should see that. You're almost 50 years old!

(I most certainly am NOT anywhere NEAR 50. My Mom always uses the age card when she wants to get a rise out of me.)

Me: They fit and they're cute and they weren't fitted to a Giraffe.

Mom: If I see your underwear again I'm taking a picture and I'm giving it your sister. She will know what to do with it.

Me: (Dropping sensitive subjects is always best) I was going to write about all the great stuff we got at the garage sales yesterday. In fact I was thinking of having a page so we could highlight one great find a week.

Mom: That's good. You can show them the pink lamp. Or the leaded windows. The blueberry bowl. The cakestands, the tiny picture frames...

Me: Or I can tell them how we always end up finding things for each other and how much fun it is to give each other little gifts all year long. And how when Carol (my sister) shops for me she gives me the chipped plates and keeps the good ones for herself.

Mom: (Singing) Sisters...There were never such devoted sisters...

Me: (The "ignore Mom technique" is good too) I was also thinking of starting a column called, Antique Etiquette, inspired by the books I found, Elinor Ames, the Book of Modern Ettiquette, Collier, Copyright 1935 and The Cosmo Girls Guide To The New Ettiquette, Cosmopolitan Books, 1967.

Mom: How about calling it, Listen to Your Mothers. Then you don't need to write anything and you can go back to work on your book. I have to go to Nino's, I'll get you some broccoli. I know you haven't had a single vegetable all week.

Click. Dial tone. Love from mother.*

Twelve hours later (for real) and I'm just finishing up my post of the day. For real. The title doesn't work (for real) because I didn't tell you about the 5 Star Burnt Chicken I made for dinner.

But if I change the title now, the content will disappear, the photo will shrink and I'll never get to bed. The book will never get written, the mortgage will never get paid, my home will go into foreclosure and I'll have to make money by dressing up my cat on different urban sidewalks in warm climates across the country.

The only reason the cute little illustration is going to work is because I'm off to make a cup of green tea before I go to bed. I'm going to dream of the time I lived in Maui.

The walks on the beach, the sunsets and the mangos I used to swipe off the giant mango tree at the bottom of the hill on my way home from the restaurant.

I'd always pick two unless they were small. Then I'd get three. I'd pick out one for eating and save the rest for breakfast. I'd walk up the hill to my home. Gazing at the stars. And the ocean. Listening to the waves. Eating my mango. Counting my blessings. Hoping the days on Maui would last forever. Because I knew they wouldn't.

 Now those were the days. I didn't own a cell phone or a computer when I lived on Maui. "I told you she's 50." I am not, MOM!

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* The best kind there is. We talk every day. We hang out. We shop. We gossip like we're on staff at OK magazine. But we only nice-gossip. We laugh. We make other people laugh. At us. With us. Whatever. And I don't ever let a day go by without thinking about how stinking lucky I am to have the World's Best Mom to hang out with. Sorry for all the lies, Dad. "We're going grocery shopping" when we're really going shopping and to the movies is not really a lie if the movie has groceries and shopping in it.

 

 

Giada Yada Yada

by Kathleen Daelemans

I love my house. Totally, the cutest little house in the world. It’s a Cape Cod cottage surrounded by beautiful gardens I had nothing to do with but try desperately to maintain. There are finials and fountains I’ve picked up from garage sales, an antique iron head board covered in Climbing Clematis and rock bordered beds filled with everything from Roses to Purple Cockeyed Tucans*. I can't imagine ever selling the place.

Row Row Row Your Boat

I woke up this morning pretty much like I always do -- with an angry obese cat on my stomach demanding breakfast. But today was a little different. Something about the way the Fujin’s** (my cat) wet feet soaked into my pajamas told me the basement might be flooded. Either that or he’d just peed on me. The latter he would not survive.

I looked out the window. It was pouring. Two days of rain and the odds of my basement being flooded were pretty good. I would have stayed in bed longer but there’s something about knowing the “wet” from your wet pj’s is either from a flooded basement or an incontinent cat, kills the mood.

I changed and went downstairs to have a look. Flooded. Again. Lovely. The first thing I see marinating in the muck are my suitcases. The ones I use for business. Great. I’ll smell like mold for my next appearance on Today. Maybe I’ll pitch a segment on blue cheese.

“Look kitty kitty, there’s the vacuum. It’s sitting next to my four dining chairs (the ones I use for “good” company) and two handmade stained glass lamp shades I can’t afford to have made into lamps yet. Oh and your litter box. You like boats don’t you?”

I said that. To no one. And no one answered. I fed Fujin. Who demanded I move his bowl upstairs out of danger. Which I did.***

For Sale By Owner

Just because it’s been raining for two days straight shouldn't mean Noah needs to row row row his arc gently down a stream connected to the lake in my house but I'm hoping he's looking for an odd couple. A cat and cook maybe.

Today, I hate my house. I’ll gladly sign over the title to the first person who produces a cup of coffee, a dry towel and a row boat ride out of here. My house is the lowest house on the street which means when it rains the water flows merrily merrily merrily merrily gently down the street and my life is but a dream.

Bitter is the New Mop

For some reason every time my house floods I think of the Food Network chefs. The last time it was Emeril. “Emeril isn’t mopping his basement. He probably doesn’t even have to clean his own house.”

This time it’s Giada De Laurentiis. Maybe because I was watching the Today show and there she was. Looking gorgeous of course. Today is her birthday. With skin like that she must be what 22? 23 tops?

I don’t imagine she was mopping this morning. Well of course not. No one mops on their birthday. She probably won't have to wash muck off a vacuum cleaner or use oxy-clean to get the blue cheese smell out of her suitcases between lunch and dinner. And I can’t believe “call the carpet cleaners” is on her itinerary either.

She probably had a lovely room service breakfast in her suite overlooking Central Park. Maybe someone will take her out for a delightful lunch and give her expensive jewelry from Tiffany’s. Not the cheap souvenir jewelry in the back. The real stuff. I’d settle for a slice of that ottoman size dark chocolate cake they made for her.

You know she didn’t take it home. I can't picture her asking one of the interns to wrap it up and send it back to her suite. I most certainly would have. And I would have eaten cake until I was sick. That cake probably cost more than my car.

Mirror Mirror on the Wall…

Giada is head to toe perfection on the show today. Absolutely radiant. Hair, make-up and wardrobe (probably hand tailored in Italy. Exquisite). I am too. I’m standing in purple ladybug rain boots ("borrowed" from neighbor. will never return. love, love more than she does.), a white cotton eyelet skirt (very faint stain lower left hem), a white, spaghetti strap, lace tank (Banana Republic $11.00), layered with a pale orange, cotton, scoop neck, tank that of course shows off the white lace beautifully (Target $7.00) .

What? You don’t expect me to mop in ugly sweat pants? Absolutely the skirt was ironed. I have standards. Spend hours and hours mopping a dirty stinky basement in depressing ugly clothes on Giada’s birthday? I don’t think so.

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*Purple Cockeyed Tucans: the term for Black-eyed Susans named so by my niece when she was in the parrot stage of toddler-hood following her grandma in the garden repeating the names of all the flowers.

** Fujin – my cat’s name. It means God of Wind in Japanese. Fujin is a cat I inherited from a friend I inherited who turned my life upside down until she died way too young. She’s in heaven yanking my chains. Probably flooded the house because she figured out I don’t feed her cat the expensive cat food anymore. 

***Why humans ascribe sentences, paragraphs, identities and an entire lifetime of thoughts we think our animals are thinking to our animals is completely crazy.

Things I've Been Meaning to Write About

by Kathleen Daelemans

I have little sticky notes stuck to bigger sticky notes (in soothing contrasting colors of course) taped to articles I've ripped out of magazines and stapled to newspaper clippings.

These notes are important things I don't want to forget about: What ever happened to Judge Wapner? What did? Some of the notes no longer make sense:

     "I'm not going to her 50th birthday party which she's having at Disney World by the way. It includes a Princess Breakfast. I will not go to a Princess Breakfast. But I do feel I have to go sit Shiva if one of them dies. I've known them for 30 years but I don't like them at all."

I wrote that. It's not nice. Not nice at all. I haven't known anyone for 30 years accept my parents and they're not Jewish. So I must have dreamt that  little bit of unpleasantness. I'm a snot in my dreams.

Perhaps it's a screenplay I'm dreaming. And I'm a bitter playwright who can only compose award winning material while unconscious wearing up-to-the-minute-this-season ironed Hue pajamas which Nordstrom has decided to no longer carry along with all my other favorite brands.

Fiiiiiiine with me because I like Target and T.J. Maxx better. I'll take coupons, goldfish and Coke zeros over cheap champagne, chocolate dipped strawberries and half-yearly sales any day.

I can just see it now...Nora and me. Me and Nora. She'll tell me all about