DIET AND HEALTH SURVEY

Megan, from Megan’s Jottings, contacted me and asked me help publicize a Diet and Health Survey on which she has collaborated with Amanda from The Cake and Biscuit Diet (a low-carb website with a most unlikely name). Megan is from the UK and Amanda (who has a PhD in Theoretical Physics and is married to a PhD in Microbiology) lives in Italy. Both these terrific ladies host great sites, chock full of useful information; I’m thrilled to have found them—better late than never!

Megan says, “We believe that low-carb is the healthiest diet, and would like this to be the biggest survey of weight-loss dieting and their health implications.”

If you are also tired of being told that a low-carb is dangerous, ineffective, and unproven, here’s your chance to be heard. The following plea is from Amanda:

“Okay, People! I need your help. We have all tried many diets and not many of them have succeeded for us. We need to know why diets have failed, and if any have succeeded. Experts don't take much notice of us, but WE have the information. We know what affects our health for the positive and the negative. We just need to gather this information and analyze it.
Please take a few minutes to tell us about your diet experiences, even if all attempts have been dismal failures! Tell us why they were failures!All information is totally anonymous and will not be used for any sinister or commercial purpose. Thanks, Chaps!!”

Please take the time to fill out the survey and if you can get anyone else to complete it, that would be great: http://www.cake-and-biscuit-diet.com/Questionnaire.aspx

And here are Megan and Amanda’s sites to add to your favorites:
http://lowcarbjottings.blogspot.com/
http://www.cake-and-biscuit-diet.com/

©2009 Judy Barnes Baker

PROGRESS REPORT and WE NEED A HERO, Part 5

I'm up to recipe number 78 with 12 more close to completion for the new book; that's more than half way home for the food and menu part. (Yeah!) I can't share any of it until after the book comes out, except with my recipe testers, who agreed to keep everything confidential. (All very cloak-and-dagger-ish, isn't it?) My fantastic team of volunteer testers are doing a great job, by the way. I wouldn't be progressing this quickly without their feedback.

I was afraid that I had exhausted my creativity with Carb Wars, but I get up every morning excited and eager to try some new idea and I usually work late every night. Except for frequent trips to the grocery store, I haven't taken many breaks. Next week, however, I'm going to L A for an appointment with the fibromyalgia specialist, Dr. St. Amand. I have been on his protocol for over a year now without seeing much difference, but one of my most annoying symptoms suddenly vanished in December and I have had a few good days in the last few months. I won't know for sure if I have made any progress until I see the doctor, although the fact that I have been able to keep up this schedule as long as I have makes me think the guaifenesin must be doing something. He will be able to tell very quickly if I am truly improving. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I'll get good news!

My previous posts on the subject, (We Need a Hero, Parts 1, 2, 3, and 4) are here: http://carbwars.blogspot.com/search?q=lyrica, here: http://carbwars.blogspot.com/search?q=part+2, here: http://carbwars.blogspot.com/search?q=Part+3, and here http://carbwars.blogspot.com/2008/07/summer-adventures-southern-california.html.

(c) 2009, Judy Barnes Baker

IRISH MUSINGS: Column Reprint From 3-12-08

We think of corned beef and cabbage as a traditional Irish dish, but it is actually Irish/American. According to Bridgett Haggerty of the Irish Cultures and Customs website, cows were generally used for milk in Ireland and were too valuable to eat. Pork was cheaper, so a side of bacon was cooked with cabbage for Easter. The Irish in New York substituted corned beef for bacon, borrowing from their Jewish neighbors, and it has come to be associated with St. Patrick’s Day. She says that Irish pubs now serve corned beef and cabbage on St. Patrick’s Day, but it is to please the tourists. Another bit of trivia—did you know that the national color of Ireland is blue?

Here’s a verse from a poem by Frances Shilliday:

Good Grief—Not Beef!

This custom the Yanks have invented,

Is an error they've never repented,

But bacon's the stuff

That all Irishmen scoff,

With fried cabbage it is supplemented.

©Frances Shilliday 2004

LOW CARB CORNED BEEF AND CABBAGE

I don’t usually think about corned beef and cabbage until I see the seasonal specials in the stores in mid-March. It makes an easy, tasty, one-dish meal; I don’t know why I don’t make it more often. (Try my walnut trick to keep the cooking odors from permeating the house and to make the rutabagas taste more like potatoes.)

1 corned beef brisket, spice packet included, about 4 pounds

1 head of green cabbage, cut into wedges

3 or 4 small rutabagas, peeled and cut into chunks (about 4 cups)

2 whole walnuts in the shell

Put the corned beef and the contents of the spice packet into a large pot and cover with cold water; bring to a boil and then lower the heat and simmer for 2 and 1/2 to 3 hours or until almost tender. Add rutabagas and walnuts and simmer for 30 minutes. Add the cabbage and simmer for an additional 30 minutes or until the meat and vegetables are fork tender. Discard the walnuts. Slice the corned beef across the grain and surround with the vegetables. Serve with prepared mustard.

Servings: about 8.

Total Carbs per Serving: 8.6 g, Fiber: 3.3 g, Net Carb: 5.3 g

Note: Corned beef was cured with dry spices in Anglo-Saxon times to preserve it. Corned refers to the large grains of coarse salt used in the rub. The Oxford English Dictionary gives the meaning of the word corn as a "small, hard particle, a grain, as of sand or salt." Corned beef is now brined or pickled in liquid.

AN IRISH OMEN
My brother has done a bit of research on our family history; as far as I know, he hasn’t uncovered any Irish connections, but I suspect that somewhere in my gene pool there was an Irish grandma, spouting Gaelic proverbs, which I sometimes find myself repeating even now. When I was a girl, I used to whistle when I was concentrating or when I was nervous. My mother would tell me, “A whistling girl and a crowing hen always come to no good end.” I’ve come across several variations on this aphorism in Irish anthologies. When I see the beginnings of those little pucker lines on my lips, the kind that only smokers are supposed to get, I wonder if this could be my comeuppance for breaking the no-whistling rule for proper young ladies.

(C) 2008, Judy Barnes Baker

VANILLA BEANS I CAN ACTUALLY USE!

I was testing a vanilla pots de creme recipe a few days ago and went to my cupboard for a vanilla bean from my hoard. I say "hoard" because that's what I do with vanilla beans. The ones I've bought in the past came in packages of two beans that cost me dearly. So much, that I could never bring myself to actually use one.

So, here I was, finally, with a recipe that looked like it might be worthy of the sacrifice, and what did I find? The beans in my stash were so dried out that I couldn't split them to get at the seeds. They just crumbled. I put some of the bits and pieces in the cream and hoped for the best. After the cream was steeped and strained, most of the minuscule, 25,000 seeds were still in the pod, and only a few (maybe 5 or 6 thousand?) wound up in the finished dessert. I doubt that I will ever overcome my innate frugality, even after such episodes of false economy, but I have found a solution to the vanilla bean problem.

My friend Carol Dearth, who owns Sizzleworks, a fabulous cooking school in Belleview, WA, gave me this tip: Costco! I shop at Costco frequently but it never occurred to me as a place to shop for vanilla beans. I found the aisle with baking ingredients and sure enough, there it was, just as she described it; a pretty card with a picture of an orchid on it, holding two glass vials with 5 vanilla beans each, for $11.99. That's 10 vanilla beans for a little over a dollar each--and they were long, plump, moist, and gorgeous. The label said Kirkland Signature Rodelle.

The rest of my old, dried-out vanilla beans went into a bottle with some bourbon to become extract; my pots de creme, and all the cream and eggs it contained, went into the trash. The recipe was not a keeper anyway, but now I may be brave enough to try it again.

My former post about vanilla and the directions for making extract is here: http://carbwars.blogspot.com/2008/11/vanilla.html

(C) 2009, Judy Barnes Baker