I’m going a little stir crazy here. Doc and Mom are taking care of absolutely everything: cooking, cleaning, moving stuff around, errands, etc. etc. etc. And that’s really super nice! But it also makes it so that I have nothing to do, and that in turn is making me a little crazy. Over the past week I have: sat on my butt, watched TV, watched movies, played Playstation, eaten three meals a day, gone on walks daily around the neighborhood or around NorthPark Mall, run a few errands, tagged many of my old blog posts, checked e-mail, updated Facebook, sat on my butt, sat on my butt, napped, and did I mention the sitting on my butt part of things?

And said butt isn’t too comfortable to be sitting on these days. One of the joys of pregnancy.

Mom made some freaking awesome brisket today. Sorry, Brett, but as it turns out, my mom’s brisket kicks your brisket’s ass. AND it has CELERY SALT on it! She’s over at a friend’s house tonight, but she left us the brisket, barbecue gravy, coleslaw, buns, and twice-baked potatoes for dinner (all homemade, including the buns). She’s killing us with calories!!

Today I talked to one of the nurses that works with the doctor that I saw on Monday. She was super nice and took the time to talk to me and explain what was going on. I guess part of my uneasiness about this other doctor was that I kind of felt like I might be forgotten since I wasn’t one of his regular patients and he was so hurry-hurry during my visit on Monday. But after talking to Deandra, I feel much much better about things.

My induction is scheduled for 6 a.m. on Thursday, December 11, if Mr. Baby doesn’t decide to make his appearance before then.

December 11 seems like a nice day for a birthday. Of course, I would much prefer if he came of his own free will ahead of that date; induced labors are often longer, more intense, and have more complications such as a higher risk of C-section.

She explained to me what to pack for the hospital: hair care stuff and scrunchies to tie my hair back, toiletries, pajamas, socks, my own pillow.

She also said that beginning next Monday, the 8th, the maternity ward’s remodeling will be complete and all the rooms will be the much nicer newly refurbished rooms. Doc figures maybe that’s why I haven’t gone into labor yet. Mr. Baby is holding out for an upgrade! So really, if he doesn’t come until Monday or later, at least I have snazzy surroundings to look forward to.

Once again, the first cold front of the fall season has come through on (or within a few days of) my birthday! I am so very happy. A break from the oppressive summer heat is the best present I could ask for.

On Saturday we got some rain from Hurricane Ike (for those of you wondering: no, we did not have lots of wind, we did not lose power, we did not lose phone service, and we only got about 2″ of rain over 24 hours) and so it was rather wet and humid near the end of last week.

Yesterday was sunny, dry, and rather pleasant, temperature-wise. Today was absolutely amazing. Again, sunny and dry, and the high temperature reached maybe 78 or so. Right now it’s in the mid-60s and we have all the windows in the house open.

Also, the light changed this weekend. It’s taken on that goldeny fall hue, and the blazingly white summer washout light is gone. Somehow it’s easier to see. Things seem prettier.

I had a really nice birthday weekend. Doc took me out Saturday night to a yummy family-style Italian restaurant, and we met some friends there. No wine with my meal, but only 11 more weeks to go on the moratorium (actually I don’t crave wine anymore so it’s much easier these days). We stuffed ourselves and then came back to our house, where we had coffee and cake, good conversation, and played some “Pain” on the PS3. I had a great time with good friends and good food. Maybe that’s the point of life: good friends and good food.

One of my favorite gifts from Doc is a book called “Hello Cupcake.” When it’s our turn to bake cupcakes for our son’s class, they will be the best damn cupcakes ever!

Maybe a boy child won’t really want these particular cupcakes for class, but I think they’re beautiful:

And probably the cutest cupcakes EVER…

This is an interesting list, compiled by the folks at VeryGoodTaste.co.uk. How many things on the list have you eaten? My score is 49, which is not too bad considering how picky I am about meat. And only 24 things I wouldn’t consider eating!

The VeryGoodTaste Omnivore’s Hundred:

• Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
• Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
• Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.

1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses de Bourgogne
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam Chowder in Soudough Bowl
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar
37. Clotted Cream Tea
38. Vodka Jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whiskey from a bottle worth $120 or more
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin (I have had Kaopectate, does that count?)
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost or brunost (Gjetost is one of my favorite cheeses!)
75. Roadkill
76. Baijiu (nasty stuff)
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang Souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom Yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. 3-Michelin-Star Tasting Menu
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam (and hated it)
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake

So I’m in the beginning stages of writing my second cookbook. This is the recipe gathering and testing stage. I have a fair number of recipes that I have developed over the past four or five years that I plan to include, but I’m on the lookout for sources of inspiration and new ideas to adapt. I have a lot of cookbooks and I love to relax by casually leafing through them. For the past couple of evenings, I have been reading one that I haven’t looked at in a very long time. This one is kind of a family heirloom: “A Kitchen Happening*” compiled by the St. Peter’s Hospital Auxiliary group in 1976, which I think is probably some sort of women’s charitable fundraising group. At the bottom of the title page is the explanation for the asterisk in the title: “*We Knead the Dough.”

Ha!

Anyway, my grandma was a member of the Auxiliary and contributed some recipes to the book. I wasn’t able to immediately locate her recipes, although I bet if I asked my mom she’d know. I have to say, though, I was pretty hard-pressed to find anything in this book that I would consider eating, let alone testing and adapting for my own cookbook. I guess the 1970s were an era when “Italian” in the title of a recipe meant that you used a can of tomato soup and a chopped green pepper, and where anything with soy sauce had to be called “Oriental.” Spices other than salt and pepper, and ethnic food of any kind, were just emerging in mainstream America, and still had a long way to go.

I thought I’d transcribe a couple of really… interesting… recipes here for your gastronomical reading pleasure. Enjoy!

Green Jello Salad

1 pkg. lime jello
1 cup boiling water
1 cup (small can) pineapple
1/2 cup canned milk
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1 Tbl. horseradish
3/4 cup nut meats

Dissolve jello in boiling water. add can of pineapple and juice. Cool. Mix rest of ingredients and fold into jello.

Tuna Souffle Salad

1 pkg. lemon jello (4-oz.)
1 cup hot water
1/2 cup cold water
1 Tbls. lemon juice
1/2 cup real mayonnaise
1 can tuna
3/4 cup chopped celery
1/4 cup sliced stuffed olives
2 Tbls. chopped pimientoes
1/2 tsp. grated onions
1/4 tsp. salt

Dissolve jello in hot water. Add cold water, lemon juice, mayonnaise and salt. Blend well with rotary beater. Pour into tray and quick freeze 20 minutes. Turn mixture into bowl and whip with rotary beater until fluffy. Fold in remaining ingredients. Pour into 1 quart mold. Chill until firm and garnish. Great with hot rolls! Serves 6.

Now, to the credit of this book, there are maybe only twenty recipes for varying types of gelled concoctions, so it’s not like the 1950s when Jello was KING and half a book might be devoted to the art of apsic. I had to print two of the more disturbing ones here, though, as a representative sample. I can’t figure out how anyone ever thought it was a good idea to mix fruit jello with fish, celery, mayonnaise, pickles, onions, or any other decidedly savory ingredient. My rule is that Jello should be sweet and adulterated only by fruit, if absolutely necessary. (Kind of like my rule that bagels and cream cheese always must be either plain or savory, never sweet. I have few food rules, but these two are pretty important.)

Mrs. Pat Lewis submitted this recipe that made me laugh out loud. Mrs. Lewis is spunky!

Half Peach Stuffed with Cottage Cheese

Place on lettuce leaf. I’m not going to explain that. I will say that I put this right on the dinner plate with the rest of the luncheon. If you are serving the shrimp, I forget the cottage cheese and add more pieces of fruit.

And last but not least, something that sounds positively horrible:

Green Pig

1 cup chopped celery
Grated onion
1/3 cup sour cream
1 jar salted cashews
1 pkg. frozen peas

Add at the last minute, 1 pkg. frozen peas. Serve on lettuce.

Not everything in this book is this bad. Really, there are a few recipes that I would almost consider trying, if it weren’t for the fact that I have a lot of other really good cookbooks and great recipes from Mom and Grandma, and, you know, not exactly endless amounts of free time. Still, I love this book. It’s a lot of fun to look through.

I just read an article that discussed what Olympic gold-medal-winning swimmer Michael Phelps typically eats for breakfast:

• 3 fried-egg sandwiches with cheese, lettuce, tomato, fried onions, and mayonnaise
• A 5-egg omelet
• A bowl of grits
• 3 slices of French toast with powdered sugar
• 3 chocolate chip pancakes
• 3 cups of coffee

I love food. Looooooove food… oh yes, my pudginess does not lie. Yet I am having a really hard time imagining how one person can eat that much in one sitting. I am trying to visualize all that food laid out side by side (one of my tricks for weight-control-by-guilt), and it’s kinda scary.

I guess that when you’re burning off 10,000 calories each day, though, it’s necessary.

Contrast that with what Doc and I ate for Sunday breakfast yesterday… a small portion of hash browns, a pumpkin spice waffle with syrup, a small slice of grilled ham, half a peach, and coffee. (Each, of course.) I was so stuffed that I didn’t eat lunch until 4 p.m.

So, here is my question. If you had to eat 10,000 calories every day, what would you eat?

Have you seen the peaches lately? Unbelievable! I stopped at my local Albertson’s a few days back to pick up some contact lens solution, and was stopped in my tracks by the peach display near the front door. I have never seen larger, more perfect peaches in my life. And they are freestone! I bought almost 5 pounds. Too bad they are neither organic nor local…. but I couldn’t help myself.

So what do you do with 5 pounds of peaches? Turn them into ice cream!

Summer Peach Ice Cream

3 nice large peaches
1 egg
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup heavy cream
3/4 cup half and half
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 teaspoon salt

Remove the pits from the peaches, and chop peaches into small pieces. Put into a blender and puree until smooth.

In a medium bowl, whisk the egg until light yellow in color. Add sugar, whisk to blend. Mix in cream, half-and-half, vanilla, and salt. Add peach puree; stir to blend thoroughly.

Pour into an ice cream freezer and freeze according to manufacturer’s instructions.

This makes a seriously rich and creamy ice cream and it’s just busting out with peach flavor. I want to try experimenting with less cream, more milk, to make a lighter, more ice-milk-y version. My favorite ice cream in the universe is Blue Bell’s Vanilla Bean, and I think part of the reason I like it is that it’s very light in texture; it’s not too rich, and it’s moderately creamy without having that mouth-feel of “oh my gosh I am eating pure fat.”

Everyone needs one of these for their next cookout!

Thanks to Doc for this disturbing image.

Especially now that I’m eating a lot less than I used to, I’ve become very aware of portion size. I think that you could safely say that what qualifies as a “kids’ meal” today at most restaurants would have been a full on adult meal 40 or 50 years ago. I often order a kids’ meal, not only because it’s generally inexpensive, but also because it’s generally quite enough food for my appetite. Quite frankly, a kids’ meal should really be enough for most people, too, ESPECIALLY if people would slow the fuck down and take a little time to digest their food. When you do that, you get full a lot faster and don’t overstuff yourself. But in our SuperSized American Culture, adult meals are often 3 to 4 times that size, with a corresponding increase in calories.

Of course, the downside of eating these smaller portions is that the selection often leans towards bland, non-nutritious food. 

I propose that other restaurants follow the lead of TGI Friday’s restaurant and offer smaller portions of their regular dishes. Fridays’ version is called “Right Portion, Right Price.” Kudos to Fridays for recognizing that not everyone can nor wants to eat two pounds of food at a sitting. I don’t want to pay $14 for, say, a plate of pasta and then have to feel like I’ve gotten my money’s worth by receiving a pile of noodles bigger than my head.

I found an interesting article on Divine Caroline that shows you a visual representation of what average portion sizes used to be 20 years ago (this was 1988, folks!) compared to today. It’s kind of scary.

I have discussed my love of bacon in this venue numerous times before. And today, I learned of the existence of Bacon Jam. Yes, that’s right; Bacon Jam, made by Skillet Street Food, a roving Airstream lunch counter in Seattle. Bacon Jam is a delicious (I assume) concoction of bacon, onions, and balsamic vinegar, all caramelized and cooked down into a lovely spreadable consistency. Can you imagine! This might be something I attempt to make on my own. If you want to buy some, they sell it on eBay.

After living with my husband for more than ten years, I am finally beginning to realize that a lot of the foods and food combinations that I like are just plain weird. My loving husband is more of a food traditionalist than I am, or perhaps I should say a food purist. He likes food close to the source, lean and fresh and healthy, prepared plainly so you can taste what the food actually tastes like. Butter and salt are about the only two condiments a person should ever need. There are rules for sandwiches: which cheeses and spreads go with which meats, and what can and cannot touch within a sandwich. If you are having a cheeseburger, cheese IS the condiment. None of this is out of the ordinary, I think.

I just have bizarre tastes. Here’s where I confess them.

For instance, my all-time favorite sandwich is peanut butter and pickle. Now, before you decide you no longer want to be friends with me, try it! You might be pleasantly surprised. The sweet crunch of the peanut butter is balanced out by the juicy saltiness (or sweetness) of the pickles. I prefer whole wheat bread, crunchy natural peanut butter (no sugar added), sweet pickle slices or a combination of sweet and dill… and sometimes a bit of mayonnaise. Yikes! Did she just say “mayonnaise?” Yes I did, and it adds another complex layer of salty creaminess. I’ve been eating these since I was a little kid. Grandma ate them, my mom and her brother and sister ate them, I eat them, and if I ever have kids, I’m going to try to get them to eat them too! Much to Doc’s horror, I am sure. :) And lest you think I’m completely nuts, try googling “peanut butter and pickle sandwich,” and you will find that I am far from alone in this!

I also like to make a dipping sauce that is a combination of sour cream and soy sauce with ginger and a dash of sugar. It’s delicious! Creamy, salty, and sweet. Great with veggie sticks, or for dipping sandwiches, chicken, or steak.

If balsamic vinegar was inexpensive, I would drink it like a fine liqueur. Delicious! I put it on everything.

I love Kraft Macaroni and Cheese (in the blue box), and I add mustard and Tabasco to mine. Just a bit will do - a teaspoon of each. I learned this trick from a friend in college when Mac and Cheese was a staple of our low-budget diets.

Bacon and chocolate go GREAT together!

Put a bit of extra salt into your next batch of chocolate chip cookies. An amazing difference! Again, the combination of sweet and salty together is delicious.

I don’t eat french fries without ketchup. French fries are merely the vehicle.

I dip chips in mustard.

Worldly as I like to think I am, I am surprisingly unadventurous when it comes to meat. In fact, I don’t eat much of it at all anymore, and what I do eat tends to be plain old ground hamburger or fish. I’m reading Bill Buford’s “Heat,” and also watching Iron Chef America on TV, and all these dishes are so heavily meat-focused and often prepared practically raw. Yuck. Iron Chef America has largely been responsible for my return to near-vegetarianism. I truly believe if you are going to slaughter an animal, you should use ALL the parts, for food or other uses… but I have to admit that there is no way I am ever going to eat brains, tongue, kidneys, skin, tripe, membranes, livers, cheeks, feet, ears, intestines, marrow, stomach, bladder, or anything else that’s not something very ordinary that comes in a package for $5 a pound at the supermarket. I’ll leave those bits to others, to more sophisticated palates than mine. Bon appetit.

I don’t like pumpkin pie, pecan pie, turkey, or chocolate ice cream. Is that un-American?

I love Velveeta. Yes, I know it’s not really cheese. I don’t care. I love it. I love it on pickle sandwiches (again with the pickles! No PB this time though) or melted with milk and salsa, as a dip for corn chips.

I love pineapple on my pizza. Not many people do, apparently.

What weird things do you love?

These are some photos from two cookbooks I had when I was little and LOVED. The first three images are from Betty Crocker’s Cookbook for Boys and Girls, and the last one is from The Little Witch’s Magic Cookbook. There are more images from these and others on my Flickr page.

I looooooved the photo of this cake, and I think I made it once. The best part was that the eyes were sugar cubes set inside eggshells, that you SET ON FIRE! Ghost Cake with Flaming Eyes! Scary!

I wanted to LIVE in this ski chalet.

My favorite recipe in the entire book. The authors were smart; they put the desserts at the front of the book.

Maybe this is where I got my love of peanut-butter-and-pickle sandwiches…

My personal Holy Grail of Cooking has four dimensions: Delicious. Nutritious. Cheap. Doc-Approved. It’s really hard to hit all four of those, but I think I did tonight, although I may have fudged a wee bit on the nutrition aspect, as you will see later on when you read about the sausage.

I impulsively bought a big bunch of rainbow chard at Central Market a few days ago, largely because it was beautiful but also because I’m trying to work more nutritionally rich plants into my diet (dark, richly-hued foods, like blueberries, spinach, orange, broccoli, tomatoes, black beans). At the time I had no plan for what I’d make with the chard, but whatever it was, it was going to be damn pretty.

Tonight I pulled the chard out of the fridge (chopped a few days ago, when I was originally going to use it but ended up being too tired to cook) and thought, “Dammit, I need to use this tonight before it gets too old.” So I did one of those crazy things I do where I just start adding things to a saucepan and hope for the best.

Sauteéd Chard, Potato, and Sausage

4 ounces pork sausage
1 medium sized Yukon Gold potato, scrubbed and cut into 1/4″ dice
2/3 cup water
1 bunch rainbow chard (or any chard), stems included, chopped into 1″ pieces
1/2 cup green beans
1 teaspoon garlic 
1 small serrano or jalapeño pepper, diced
Salt to taste

In a medium saucepan, cook pork sausage until browned, breaking into small bits with a spoon. Pour off most of the fat (not down your drain! See note below), leaving a little for flavor. Add potato and water; cook on medium-high for about 5 minutes until water is mostly evaporated and potatoes are tender. Add chard (you may have to do this in 2 batches if it won’t all fit), green beans, garlic, and serrano pepper. Stir. Cover pan and cook for just a minute or two, until chard starts to wilt. You don’t want to overcook it. Remove from heat, add salt to taste, and serve.

Yum!

I served it with cheese-tortillas (sharp cheddar melted on tortillas, under the broiler).

Note: When I ask you to pour off the fat from the cooked sausage, please don’t pour it down your drain! All that grease gets into the sewer system and sticks to pipes like cholesterol on your arteries, and causes all sorts of problems. Pour it into an empty tin can, cover it, and freeze. Keep using the can until it’s full, then toss it in the trash. There’s probably a way to use this technique without having to put a recyclable tin can in the landfill, like lining the can with cling wrap or something so it can be popped out later… but the hot fat might melt the plastic. If you have any ideas, let me know.