Healthy Inspirations

Today was my annual check-up. Luckily, given that my primary care physician is lovely, the 2+ hours long appointment was not as unpleasant as it could be. And while I've quit smoking and got a great all-clear recently after surgery, the holidays have provided plentiful rich food and drink. . .

Let's just say the scale was not kind. Surely a fluke, probably a seismic shifting of the earth or problem in the buildings structural integrity that led to the floor tilting, etc., etc.

Nonetheless the health scares of late and scale results led me to think that my recent indulgences (French-style hot chocolate with whole bars melted into milk being one very unfortunate new recipe.. . )should be a tad less frequent.

So this great article in the Times inspired me to think of making some lighter fare. Asian inspired, probably with a heavy leaning towards Japanese and not my beloved coconut milk-heavy Thai curries, lots of ginger, fresh steamed healthy goodness which is light but flavorful.

Ah well, if there is any hope of looking cute in all those party dresses then perhaps a bit more healthy living could be arranged.

Monday afternoon vices

I was reminded yet again during a phone conversation late last night, just how much I am going to miss my current life of leisure. Poverty aside, there is nothing quite as lovely as going to bed on a late Sunday night, knowing that the only thing you really have to do the following day is go to a doctor's appointment. And buy wine for your Tuesday night party. 

There might be, oh, say 40 items on your to-do-before-move list, but clearly many things are best done at the last minute, in a rushed way. Clearly. Plus, there is something to be said about the joys of a quiet Monday spent buying wine, planning a menu for the following evening's soiree, and watching such cinematic classics as What Happens in Vegas. On a non-food related sidebar, the movie was surprisingly cute, and you can turn your brain off the moment you sit down. Ah joyful life of leisure - how I am going to miss you!

My day of leisure began with an early morning  Hurenfruehstuck, followed by a toasted  Zingermans bagel (the Parmesan and black pepper is by far my favorite) with cream cheese, and then some bulghur pilaf and Swiss chard salad for lunch. All in all pretty healthy. 

And now, I am enjoying one of the few vices that I have. Okay, that's a lie. One of the many, many vices, but food-wise, truly one of the few. I know it is not good for me. And yet, there is that intangible pull it has on my taste buds that I have to enjoy every now and then.*

What is this magic delicacy you might ask yourself? Slices of pata negra served with the baguette flown in from my old bakery? Hand-cut french fries with homemade mayonnaise, raw eggs and all?** A glass of France's finest wine and and some cheeses such as  a generous slice of Morbier rounded off with a nice wedge of Fourme d'Ambert and some Crottin de Chavignol  served with a glass of Chateauneuf-du-Pape from La Bastide St. Dominique, that my friend Veronique's parents make themselves? 

My own secret vice is a tad more provincial/affordable and very, very mundane: 

A can of ice cold regular Coke.  

If an old fashioned glass bottle is available, you have hit the jackpot, but otherwise it must be in a can and not from a plastic bottle. Certainly not Pepsi, and definitely not Diet Coke, but regular ole' straight-out-of-the-fridge-served-on-ice-with-a-straw Coke. 

Growing up my parents would rarely (if ever) let my brother and I drink soda or eat junk food. In retrospect, it might be a great way to raise children. However at the time, I felt like the weird little girl with the weird name and the weird spinach pie for lunch. Ethnic hadn't quite become "in" until well after I left high school. And no, I am not bitter. 

I have since learned to deal with my inexplicable pull towards Cool Ranch Doritos, which I know really do taste awful and literally chemical. Yet once in a blue moon, just the smell of one brings back a flood of overwhelming childhood memories. I find myself in a frenzied daze either looking down at an empty bowl of chips at at someones party (very, very embarrassing) or a crumbled bag from the vending machine with every drop drained. Fortunately, my friends rarely serve Cool Ranch Doritos, and much like an alcoholic can never drink, so too should I never get near those chips. 

My relationship with Coke is less dysfunctional.  Somehow sweet sweet Coca Cola still has that zing for me and puts me in a good mood every time. It is the ultimate kick of carbonated sugary hydration and caffeine. What could be possibly wrong with that? 

Always Yours. 

*"every now and then" = approximately once a week. 

**  For those of you tsk tsking the addition of mayo to what is already a fatty little treat, let me say you don't know what you are missing. Especially if the fries are just big wedges of British chips doused in salt and vinegar. The Germans have a great saying, "wenn schon, denn schon," meaning if you're going to do it, you might as well do it all the way. Which might be one way of summing up both my Weltanschauung as well as recent diagnosis of hypertension. Hence the reduction of food-vices. 

*** Does anyone else find it fantastic that French AOC cheeses all have their own website? Surely there are better ways one could spend one's time then to browse such websites, yet only in France would they value their terroir as much, and you have to give them credit for not letting their food culture be swept up in a wave of global trends. 

Blogging

I resisted blogging for a long, long time, preferring to send impersonal group "update" messages from the various countries I was in about shenanigans, travel, and so on than actually publishing a website for the greater Internet community to hear from my oh-so-interesting inner monologue about about my oh-so-interesting life.

Ironically it is now, when my life has been at its most mundane (living in my parents' basement, in the town I grew up in, on unpaid leave), that the urge to write has been incessant. And I like to write about things I enjoy. And one thing I enjoy most is food. 

When I reflect on various highlights of my life, I most clearly remember the first Sauerbraten my host mom Angie made the year I was an exchange student in the village of Ruderting (600 inhabitants, I was probably the token non-Bavarian), the stuffed Turkish bell peppers my friend Anita and I cooked for Thanksgiving my junior year abroad in Paris, the first actual Thanksgiving turkey I cooked all by myself in Berlin (amazingly tender, a very possible reflection of the fact that I was in love ), the first meal I cooked for myself in Islamabad constructed entirely from goods from the Commissary (I believe frozen spinach, canned tomatoes and pasta were involved, as was a healthy dose of wine. The meal is pictured above.) And I could go on, and on, and on. . . 

For me food is memory. For better or worse, it is how I remember events in my life. And cooking is what I turn to when I need a stress relief, or just to enjoy the shear joy of touching fresh ingredients. And now that I have some fundamental and scary changes, cooking and food are going to be extremely useful both in terms of helping me look forward, cope with the corresponding anxiety, help me come to terms with the past, and remember those moments when life was happy, my stomach full, and tout etait bien.

So enjoy the blog as much or as little as you like. I would love to get feedback on the recipes as well as hear about your own experiences with food, but if you find it trite or dull, ben alors, personne ne sois obligee de le lire. However if there was/is someone who could tell me how to do umlauts and accents on letters, I would, naturally be eternally grateful. And my inner language nerd would sleep better at night.

Yours always,

E. 

PS - the francophone influence (both linguistic and in dishes to come) stems from the fact that while I did grow up with amazing food around me, I really started cooking for myself the year I studied in Paris (1999 - 2000) and for the first time lived in an apartment right behind the Place des Vosges with my friend Caroline. In my experience, food and cooking are fundamentally linked with that first experience of trying to be an adult and fending for myself. 

Food thoughts, 2 of ?

"Convier quelqu'un c'est se charger de son bonheur pendant tout le temps qu'il est sous votre toit." 

"Dis-moi ce que tu manges, je te dirai ce que tu es."

"Heureux chocolat, qui apres avoir couru le monde, a travers le sourire des femmes, trouve la mort dans un baiser savoureux et fondant de leur bouche. "

Anthelme Brillat - Savarin