bloggie blog

Saw this dude protesting outside the brand-new Chick-fil-A in Hollywood, at the corner of Sunset and Highland, where the new normal is probably going to be lines of cars around the corner, interfering with traffic. Boo.

The guy is protesting the close affiliations and donations between this restaurant chain and Focus on the Family (evil), which I’d heard before, but he also says that Chick-fil-A has a retreat center where they have meetings only for married straight employees (creepy).

Well, we know one thing for sure. It’s a trend we see all the time, with Focus on the Family’s James Dobson being a shining example. Remember when he took a gay prostitute to a hotel room? Yeah, that. So the thing we know for sure is this: somebody who runs Chick-fil-A is a closeted homosexual.

From Scientific American’s daily podcast comes this health (and dating) tip. Glow from Eating Well Judged Healthy-Looking: “Eat fruits and vegetables if you want your face to advertise your fitness.”

Thought I’d post that, now that I’m feeling better about food. I got food poisoning late Monday night last week. The symptoms are bad but only last 24 hours … except that they take several days to really go away.

I’m hungry for carotenoids now. Off to eat some carrots.

My dad is fond of stating that the cranberry is one of only 3 native American fruits. Most fruits came from Europe or somewhere else, but here in America is where they discovered cranberries, Concord grapes and one other that I can’t remember.

Today, for Thanksgiving, I’m trying two new cranberry recipes. The first is, in a sense, retro, as it uses gelatin and you create a mold and then glob it out. It won’t have ridges from the side of the can and it won’t have sugar in it, but otherwise it’s old school. I found it here, but you might not have permission to see that page, so here’s the recipe:

1 package whole raw cranberries
1 envelope plain, unflavored gelatin
honey to taste (½ – ¾ C)
1 C orange juice

Cook berries with ½ cup OJ until soft and split. Let cool. Purée. Add honey to taste. Mix gelatin in remaining OJ, then add to warm cranberry purée and mix well. Pour into mold, and chill, undisturbed, for twelve to twenty-four hours. To unmold, turn cranberry sauce upside down, with a hand to catch it underneath. Dip under running hot tap water to release the sauce, and remove quickly. Slide the sauce onto serving plate and remove mold. Keep chilled until serving time. Variation: substitute blueberries or other fruit.

The next one is raw. No cooking, only delicious ground goodness, from The World’s Healthiest Foods:

1 package fresh cranberries
1 medium pear
1 medium apple
1/4 C honey
1 tsp horseradish
1 tsp vinegar

Blend cranberries in a food processor. Same for apple. Same for pear. Grate horseradish root. In a bowl, combine blended cranberries and rest of ingredients. Chill.

Retro or raw, I’m grateful for cranberries!

I just made 2 cups of almond milk using this recipe and this bag. Not bad, not bad at all. Delicious, in fact. My blender is noisy, otherwise, because you squeeze it out quick-like, this is easy-peasy and totes yummers.

For the last 64 days, my life has been sweetened — literally — by an amazing honey that I just finished off. It’s the end of an era. Thank you, Emily!

You see, 64 days ago my sister Emily and her family brought me 3 lbs. of Wonderful Wyoming Honey, when they came to Anaheim to visit some large theme park or something. The honey comes from the hives of Milt & Peggy Miller, who live in the shadow of the Tetons and make the world’s best honey. I’ve eaten it by the spoonful for 64 days now (but who’s counting), and I miss it already. If you find this honey, buy it.

At Whole Foods, I saw a packet of fresh, organic herbs labelled “Poultry Herbs.” Try as I might, I couldn’t find a list of what was inside. Strange. But if you open it up, you will find the exact quantities of rosemary, sage and thyme that my chicken soup recipe calls for. Exact. Ain’t that nice? No extra expense of 3 herbs (and they are expensive), and no extra herbs going bad in the refrigerator. The aroma is wafting even as I type this. Mmm … herbs.

I had a brief lunch with an old friend from Boston today. This was good! (Also good: more and more, restaurants are happy to serve a bun-less burger with fruit on the side.)

But Linda, we didn’t take a picture! This was not a wise turn of events. I posed at the stop of the stairs. The street we met was lovely, as was the weather, as were we all. In other words, the conditions were oh so right! Oh, well. Next time. Next time we’ll snap a pic.

Nice seeing you!

The 11 Best Foods You Aren’t Eating

This is one of the most popular articles on the NYT site. So far this year, I’ve had 4 of the 11 foods I supposedly am not eating. (I’ll let you guess which ones.) Check ’em out!