Coffee heat rising

Biking as Exercise Shortcut

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So I have to be at the doc’s office for a blood draw at  7:30 this morning. That doesn’t leave enough time to jog around the park and get cleaned up, so I decided to ride my bicycle instead. Four times around the park = four miles. Left the house at 5:10 a.m.

Bad idea. Too many morons with dogs off the leash. What IS it with these people? If you want to let your dog run loose, take it to a dog park! How hard is that? Several residents here have been bitten by large loose dogs as they (the residents) were jogging or running around the park. Dogs chase prey. That is their nature. When they see someone trotting along, they think the person is something to eat, and no amount of calling your overindulged “baby” pooch will call it off.

Also, at this hour the workmen laying train tracks up Nineteenth Avenue are arriving to park in the vacant lot the city has rented for them. This means you have loose dogs to the left of you and smelly cars driven by guys texting while drinking coffee to the right of you. Lovely.

And four miles of biking on the flat is really not enough exercise. It hardly raised a sweat.

At any rate, the other fauna are pretty interesting to watch. There’s a gaggle of older women who gather around 5:00. They don’t jog around the park. They don’t walk around the park. They amble. Very slowly. And they chat. Very busily. One of them, who must be having her aches and pains, appears on a motocross-type bicycle, but because she can’t go slow enough to keep pace with them, she pushes herself along with her feet on the ground. It’s a hoot.

There’s a walrus-shaped nerd — pure nerd, for sure — who seems to be walking for his health. He wears a bright orange T-shirt every day, and he, too, ambles along very, very slowly. He plugs himself into earphones from which tinny music emanates, loud enough to catch your attention way across the street. Must be blowing out his hearing.

Harriet walked by with her dog, who’s getting on in years now. She was surprised that I wasn’t on foot this morning. 😀

Several rather handsome, immaculately groomed middle-aged men, the types who look like they can afford those houses around the park, also jog at that hour. Scenic.

It’s supposed to reach 111 today, and so waiting until I get back from this morning’s moment of grand fun would not do. By 8:00 it will be too hot to throw oneself around outdoors.

And at 11:30 some friends are coming over for lunch and to lounge in the pool. I still have to vacuum the floors and clean the bathrooms and shock-treat the pool with a non-chlorine oxidizer and water all the outdoor plants before they get here.

In an Arizona summer, it’s too hot in the evenings, too, to charge around outside. I’ve been trying to do the roadwork in the early morning and then swim at sunset. Last night, got 30 laps in. One lap is only 80 feet…but according to my English-major math calculations, 33 laps would be half a mile. My goal is to get to 50 laps a day, by adding five laps every day or two. Very, very boring activity, but at least you don’t make yourself sick trying to exercise in the heat.

Made some bean soup last night with one of Sprouts’s 10-bean mixes. Result: less than optimal. Most of the beans are actually lentils, which is nice, except that lentils cook in a fraction of the time it takes for the pinto beans and black beans they’ve mixed in there. So by the time you get the larger legumes cooked, the lentils have melted into a thick, unappetizing mush. Also, without salt, it’s pretty bland. You’d need to dump a fair amount of salt in there to make it at all palatable. I added half a can of tomato sauce for flavor, but that stuff is way too full of salt. One-quarter cup socks you with 12% of your sodium RDA, a figure which itself is probably high. So that was disappointing.

Gotta get going! Have a tolerable Friday and a great weekend…

Less Meat…but Better Meat?

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CowSomewhere during the past several weeks — don’t recall where, exactly — I came across some food pundit’s advice that if, as anyone with any conscience must, you feel the production of meat and chicken in this country is inhumane and unsafe but you can’t afford to eat grass-fed, hormone-free, humanely slaughtered critters every day of your life, you should use your monthly meat budget to buy the highest quality meat you can find, but less of it than you’re used to. Don’t eat meat every day, or else eat lots less of it per meal.

This makes a lot of sense to me.

One of my friends, who’s had a couple of heart attacks, a quadruple bypass, and a stroke, appears to be the picture of health. He attributes his amazing recovery  and present good health to a strict vegetarian diet.

We know that red meats and dark portions of poultry add cholesterol (thereby contributing to your hardening arteries) and raise your blood pressure. We know that vegetarians are much less likely to suffer hypertension and may be less prone to atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries). But…total, unrelenting vegetarianism is not my style. I like meat, I like cheese, and I’m not gonna quit eating them.

However, I’m open to compromise.

Why not eat a lot less meat — maybe only a couple of servings a week — and use the money you save with that strategy to buy better quality products?

Earlier this week I tried it with a pricey little whole chicken from Sprouts.

Chicken. It’s one of my pet peeves. Like tomatoes, chicken has been stripped of flavor over the past few decades. Factory-farmed chicken is as bland and blah as soggy cotton.

Believe it or not, folks, chicken is supposed to taste like something. And not like the onions and garlic and gravy you dump on it. No. Chicken is supposed to taste like chicken. Same is true of turkey, which is about as flavorless as anything you can buy from the shelves of the food deserts we in America call supermarkets. In some European and Asian countries, you still can find chicken that has a flavor; that’s how I know it’s not just that my taste buds have gone numb in old age.

No, indeed.

In the U.S., you can find chicken with a flavor at Sprouts and, to a much more pronounced degree, at Whole Foods. Splurge a little and buy yourself an organic, free-range, no-hormone, no-antibiotic, no-torture chicken at one of these markets. Sprinkle some herbs over the top of it and bake it in a 350-degree oven or over a slow barbecue grill for 45 minutes or an hour, until it’s done.

You will be amazed.

I also discovered, by serendipity, that humanely, cleanly raised pork available at Sprouts is pretty damn delicious, too.

Meat, chicken, and fish that taste better would make a fine treat, to be consumed on special occasions and with restraint in day-to-day life.

Never have thought I could afford the fancy humanely farmed beef at Whole Foods. But…if I weren’t scarfing a piece of beef a day, I sure could.

Right now the freezer is jammed with Costco rib-eye — I buy a package of the stuff and cut each steak into three pieces, providing enough for at least 12 or 15 servings. Cutting back on the number of servings per week will extend that supply to cover a month or month and a half. Or more.

But after that’s gone?

It’s off to Whole Foods.

CowHindu

Images: Swiss cow. Daniel Schwen. Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
Hindu cow. From “Ten Questions People Ask about Hinduism …and Ten Terrific Answers!” (p. 6). © Himalayan Academy Publications, Kapaa, Kauai, Hawaii. Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic license.

 

And While We’re at It…Cucumber Gin Rickey Recipe

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A gin rickey is like a gin and tonic, only with club soda: no sugar! No sugar, no sodium…how dietetic can you get?

Unless you squeeze a lot of lime or lemon into a gin rickey, it can be, on the whole, bland. On the other hand, it must be allowed that a large cold glass of plain carbonated water (slightly adulterated with alcohol) is mighty refreshing at the end of a 109-degree day.

To make it even more refreshing — and rather tasty — add a slice of cucumber.

The strategy:

Slice off a piece of Armenian cucumber (the kind that comes sealed in plastic) or peel a length of regular cuke (the kind that comes slathered in wax that you can’t wash off) and cut a peeled slice off that. One or the other — doesn’t matter ; just evade the wax.

Drop the cucumber slice into the bottom of a tall glass. Take a spoon and bash it a bit, within reason.

Add a jigger of gin. Squeeze an eighth or a quarter of a lemon over this (depending on the lemon’s size). Let it sit for a minute or so, maybe, depending on your sense of urgency.

Now add a few ice cubes, as desired. Fill to the top with club soda, preferably cold.

You could, in theory, drop in a sprig of mint.

Absolute, perfect refreshment.

Eggplant Joy!

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This diet food is pretty darned good. Actually, the scheme to lose 20 pounds in 10 weeks is forcing me to go so far as to cook new things, rather than plodding through my usual mealtime sleepwalk.

I found an elegant little eggplant at Sprouts the other day. Determined to eat it before it turned to mildew in the fridge, I broke it out yesterday. Check out the result:

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It turned out amazingly delicious, with a rich, tangy flavor that I didn’t expect. Here’s how to make it, or something like it:

Get your hands on the following ingredients, more or less:

• 1 eggplant
• 1 yellow onion
• 2 cloves garlic
• a few edible fresh tomatoes (I use Campari tomatoes, the only ones in our markets that have a flavor)
• some fresh whole mushrooms
• bell pepper (the “sweet mini” variety that comes in bags is perfect)
• fresh or dried herbs, or a combination (I had marjoram, parsley, & rosemary in the garden; added some fines herbes)
• small handful of pine nuts, if you have some
• small can low-salt tomato sauce
• feta or Parmesan cheese
• olive oil
• wine (I used red, but think white wine would be good and sherry or Madeira might also be very nice)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Slice the eggplant lengthwise into thick slices. If necessary to fit your baking dish, cut these into smaller pieces.

AuberginesIf you’re not trying to avoid salt, you can sprinkle the slices with salt and set them on an oven rack placed over the sink. Let them sit about an hour and then wipe off the exuded moisture and salt with a paper towel. The slices should be dry before proceeding.

This salting procedure leaches out the bitterness you sometimes find in eggplant, particularly older, tougher eggplants. It’s unnecessary with younger fruits, so if you’re doing a low-salt diet, you should avoid older eggplants and leave out this step. No harm was done when I declined to salt the pieces of my small, tender aubergine.

Next, coarsely chop some onion. I used about half of a large onion — estimate how much you need according to taste and amount of eggplant.

Skim the bottom of a frying pan with a little olive oil and sauté the onion gently, over medium heat, until it’s translucent and just starting to brown. Add the pine nuts, if you’re using them.

Meanwhile, wash the ’shrooms and trim off the bottom of the stem (leave the mushrooms themselves whole); chop the garlic, and cut the fresh tomatoes into about 1-inch chunks. Slice the bell pepper into attractive, bite-size pieces. Chop any fresh herbs you intend to use.

As the onion cooks, add remaining items one at a time. First put in the mushrooms — if they soak up too much of the olive oil, add a little more, but if you wait for a few minutes after starting the onions, they should be OK without added oil. Stir these around and go on about your business for a few more minutes. Then add the garlic and herbs.

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Stir the simmering ingredients around and let cook for another couple of minutes. Shortly, add the pepper slices. Stir; allow to cook until the pepper softens a bit. As this is happening, add the wine.

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Now let this simmer for at least eight or ten minutes. The idea is to get the ’shrooms to soak up wine, which makes them amazingly good to eat.

While the mixture is simmering, spread the eggplant slices on the bottom of an oven-proof baking dish. Ideally, they should be one layer, but you can fish-scale them as necessary. You’ll want the sauce to completely cover the eggplant.

Eventually, stir the can of tomato sauce into the simmered veggie/wine mixture. Spoon the resulting sauce over the eggplant slices and, if desired, sprinkle feta or Parmesan over the top. If you’re really serious about low sodium or you’re a strict vegan, skip the topping! But…I find it impossible to contemplate eggplant, onions, garlic, and tomato without some sort of cheese over it. So, yes: the serpent tempted me and I did eat.

Place this lovely concoction into a 350-degree oven and cook, uncovered, about 40 minutes, give or take.

With a little salad on the side, it makes a yummy dinner that will fill you up.

¡Buen provecho!

🙂

It Seems So Obvious…

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Why didn’t we think of it before?…

• Go to Costco about 6 or 7 p.m., and you avoid the crowds. The place stays open until 8:30, but by 6:00 or so, the mob has gone home to dinner.

• Those clear plastic boxes that hold pre-picked and supposedly washed lettuce? Emptied and washed, they’re perfect to hold your salad makings: a bag of carrots, a couple bunches of green onions, a half-used cucumber, a bunch of radishes, a bell pepper, a small jar of artichoke hearts. No more rummaging through  refrigerator drawers every time you want to make a tossed salad!

• Salad greens that come in those clear plastic boxes usually wilt soon and often end up half-spoiled. One could avoid that and still have convenience by saving the boxes, then buying whole heads of lettuce, washing them, breaking off the leaves, patting them dry, and storing them in the boxes. Put a paper towel in there to help stabilize humidity in the box.

• A digital tool that runs on batteries needs to have fresh batteries. Change the batteries in the bathroom scale, known to run two or three pounds lighter than the balance scale in the doc’s office, and lo! It comes up with a number half-a-pound heavier than it did. Still not accurate, but closer.

• Members of the One Percent are exempt from ordinary laws that apply to the hoi polloi.

Case in point: woman is walking her large dog through the park, off the leash. I have to maneuver Cassie away from Poopsie, who approaches us aggressively and does not come to call. Later, as I come around the last leg of my jog around the park, I see Poopsie running loose in the park, no sign of his human. She’s across the street opening the back door of her vehicle for him. He runs across the road — a feeder street through the neighborhood, and this is now high rush hour — and jumps in. The oncoming car, fortunately, is far enough away to miss hitting him. She climbs into the driver’s seat and, smiling, drives contentedly away in her Mercedes SUV.

Wonder what a permit to let your dog run loose costs?

• If I would not check e-mail at 5:00 a.m., I wouldn’t be sucked into the client’s vortex of confusing changes in proof 3 (!!!) and then maybe I could get out the door before 6:30, when the sun is glaring in everyone’s eyes and the thermometer is already pushing Hotter Than Hell.

• If I would jog first and then walk Cassie, that would circumvent her occasional not-gonna-do-this mood, and then I wouldn’t have to drag her back from the park, put her in the house, and start over again.

• The brand-new, very nice Sprouts is on the canal. I could ride my bike down there, if there’s a place to lock it up at the store. Come to think of it, after the weather cools off, I could walk to that Sprouts! And that would be a long enough hike to make up the day’s required aerobic self-abuse.

• If one would not take on any new clients, one wouldn’t have the issue of having too g.d. much work to do. Betcha one wouldn’t see any more mind-boggling, byzantine labyrinths of corrects on corrects on corrects on corrects, either.

Life in the New (healthful, we hope) Regime

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P1010572Believe it or not, I’ve lost ten pounds since the present healthcare nightmare started (as of May 23) and four pounds since officially beginning The Diet & Exercise Regime. I’ve consumed so many veggies and so many fruits that any day now I’m going to turn into a flowering plant. But what’s really making the difference is the exercise. Jogged 1.4 miles this morning; swam 20 laps of the backyard swimming pool this afternoon; will probably jog another .66 mile this evening if it gets cool enough for Cassie the Corgi to trot that far by around 9 p.m.

She couldn’t take it this morning because it was already bloody hot by 6 a.m., so I had to bring her back and go on my way alone — she’s so furry, the heat really does her in. My “jog” is her “slow lope,” but interestingly, she’s VERY hot to trot…now that she knows I can stumble along behind her, she’s become demanding. Very demanding.

It was a crisp 102 degrees here today. Not bad, for this time of year: June is summertime in the Valley of We-Do-Mean Sun. But the Cassowary is built for a climate zone where 80 degrees is a heat wave. This is, after all, a beast bred to chase sheep in Wales. To keep her safe in the heat, I have to drench her head with cool water before and after taking her out. Dogs are more susceptible to heat stroke than humans because they’re built for short sprints — not, like apes of the homo genus, for long steady runs across the veldt — and in a place like Arizona they succumb quickly to the effects of a 100-degree day.

Presumably the fast weight loss is the combined result of the blood pressure pills, which include a diuretic, and of getting off my butt for longer than it takes to limp from the computer to the refrigerator. No doubt within a few days this will slow down to a saner rate (I’ve lost four pounds just in the past three days). In the meantime, I’ve been having some great kitchen adventures cooking up edible diet-friendly dishes.

Here’s one to try, even if you’re not dieting.

Mango salad

Place some nice, tender salad greens on a plate. Peel a delicious ripe mango. Slice up the meat and arrange the slices appealingly over the greens.

Now add a handful of walnuts or pecans and a handful of lovely fresh blueberries. Chop a little green onion and sprinkle that over the top. Squeeze a little fresh lemon or lime over the top, and dribble some olive oil over that.

You say you’re not on a diet? Well, hell…run amok! Brown those nuts in some butter and sprinkle some Parmesan cheese over the top. But y’know, really: it’s not necessary.

😉