Archive for February, 2007
I have been looking at every single runway show reported in the UK Telegraph and the NY Times since the Paris shows started weeks ago. These are all for Autumn/Winter 2007, but good ideas will get incorporated into this Spring/Summer street fashion, because why would we wait for fashions to appear in our shops at prices we can’t afford anyway?
Today the first of the Italian reports began with a Telegraph slide show “Clips.”
Soon we will see only scattered shows from Istanbul and Singapore. That’s not to say that there isn’t delicious design coming from lots of different countries, but only to say that most countries don’t have a cohesive and collective effort in place that is reported around the world.
Sometimes a collection reminds me of a particular friend, and sometimes they make want to jump up, grab some fabric and the sewing machine and adapt, adapt, adapt. John Galliano and Marc Jacobs have me fired up about becoming a proper hanger for their clothes as reinterpreted for “not the size zero runway model everybody is worried about.” 
Like this healthy and sporty looking girl, who could be from anywhere, almost. Applause.
February 19th, 2007
Selfishness, essere egoista… not things we like to say about ourselves, I know. The photo is from about.com’s exercise pages.
If you think, however, of the icons of fame and style, it’s easy to see that one has to dedicate a lot of time and energy to get that way and to stay that way. So, okay, we are not aiming to become Angelina Jolie nor yet Jennifer Lopez or even Helen Mirren. It takes more than a diet and some exercising. But we can take a clue that these women do think that taking care of themselves is part of their job. If you are about to say something about how that time could better be spent feeding starving Africans or nursing lepers, step back a moment: almost no one is actually going to do that. Whether fat or fit, I don’t believe you are champing at the bit to go off and emulate Mother Teresa.
Some volunteer work where it is needed near you is a really good idea for getting something on your mind besides food, and it might help when you feel sorry for yourself, too. That’s not today’s subject, however. Today’s subject is self-involvement. Taking care of yourself.
Physical movement is important. Of course you can’t decide to walk outside one day and join the neighborhood football game. They don’t want you and you will hurt yourself. Depending on where your fitness level is at this moment, turn up the effort a little. If you have been vegetating through the winter —where did I get an idea that anyone might do that — start with stretching. Start in the shower. Flexibility is just about the most important thing to maintain as you age. It will keep you from sitting awkwardly, shuffling when you walk and stiffening up in your movements which telegraphs old. Stretching in the shower will allow you to progress faster without hurting anything.
Pelvis:
Before you even get out of bed, do this yoga stretch. Lying flat on the bed, and with your toes in the up position, not pointed, stretch one leg down and away from your trunk while pulling the other into your trunk. Hold a bit. Then reverse it. You will experience a warmth and free feeling in the area where your hips, pelvis and spine all meet. Just lay there and enjoy that for a few seconds. Anytime, day or night, that you experience stiffness in that area, drop to some surface and do it again. You might make new friends on the bus or the subway. It is the single best stretch I ever learned and I learned it at a bar table from Betty Marvin. Thank you, Betty!
In the shower
Neck:
Stand straight and put your hands flat on your chest just inside your shoulder bones. Slowly turn your head to the left and return it as far as you can to the right. Continue to do this for five turns in each direction. Your hands will help you to ensure that you are turning your head and not your shoulders.
Next nod all the way down and all the way back several times. Slowly. The slower you work, the better it works. My chiropractor said no to do side to side leaning stretches, but I don’t know if that was for me with a chronically injured neck, or whether it is just a bad move.
Spine:
Lean from the waist without bending your knees and let gravity slowly stretch your spine. It doesn’t matter where you start, every single day you will stretch a bit further and that’s what counts. Eventually you may be able to walk with your hands right through your legs.
Then with your arms hanging loosely at your sides, lean to the left and let gravity pull you over. Your hand will drop from around your knee to several inches lower. Every day the starting place will be a bit lower and the end point will get lower, too. I suppose there is a limit to that unless you are a Chinese acrobat, but I have never found my limit. Repeat on the other side. Remember, all this is slow and gradual.
Next, turn from your waist as far as you can without turning your head away from straight to your shoulders. Slowly do several repeats of this in each direction.
Last, raise your arm next to your head with the elbow bent. Your hand will probably be just below the nape of your neck. Use your other hand to grasp that elbow and push the arm back, back. Don’t make it hurt, just reach your limit. That too will alter as you go on.
Then dry off, get dressed and go for a walk, or if you are up to it, a jog or a run or whatever you like to do. I do other stretches as well, not in the shower. I should think there must be websites galore with stretches you can try, and unlike a lot of calisthenics or exercise programs, you are unlikely to hurt yourself with stretching if you treat it as a welcome interval that makes you feel better and you don’t try to push it too fast.
Don’t push yourself to do something a lot more vigorous than you are used to doing. If you haven’t been doing anything, do the stretching for a week or so before you start walking fast. The point is that you don’t want to end up in bed with an injury.
February 18th, 2007
Not ketchup nor catsup, if you only knew.
When I wrote the first article on equipping a kitchen, I thought I would do one each week until I exhausted the subject. That was ridiculously optimistic. That one article took thirteen online hours to write, mostly because I wanted to provide at least one photo of each item and a possible place to buy it. In my life, one can either spend thirteen hours online looking up spatulas and frying pans, or one can spend part of them touring a frantoio, (n.b. that site is so overdesigned that I cannot open a single page) visiting friends, reading novels, cooking and eating, shopping the sales to find a great jacket, or one can spend thirteen hours writing one article. I do plan to write the rest of them, but it seems ideal to work on that when I run out of truly delicious dietetic ideas over the next six weeks.
If you get a little antsy waiting, go look at my hobby blog, which gets a new entry every single day that Blogger photo loading is working. That, unfortunately, is not everyday.
If you are feeling antsy in the kitchen, go back into the archives here and try something we made before. I sometimes forget to do that, and then rediscover something like this or that, both seasonal and still wonderful dishes to eat right now before leeks get scarce. Go ahead, impress the hell out of someone!
On the other hand, johnchow.com just published a review of what may be the most horrible idea for connecting technology with sex I can recall seeing for at least 6 months, which is an eon in the online world.
Alice Twain just published an article on Slow Travel which I found really on target. It’s about surviving the heat when traveling, but the tips are good when you aren’t traveling, too. Good job, Alice!
I was very busy yesterday running around town setting up for this year’s cooking classes. It was just a gorgeous and sunny day, but I ended it at sundown on the top of a mountain, seriously underdressed for the falling temperature and the rising wind, because I was wearing the aforementioned gorgeous jacket and a pair of lemon yellow unlined gloves. It was still a great day, despite oversalted gnocchi con gamberi at my local cafe and walking in on the making of yet more fried Carnevale sweets at my friend’s house. I booked Sunday night for the making of the oft mentioned fattening recipe and bought shrimp for it as well as rice to replace the weeviled and wrecked rice I had counted on for the quick risotto for one recipe I promised my cooking group. Yes, I did remember what I had promised, eventually.
I was given two primula plants in full bloom and a tiny bottle of organic olive oil to taste. Wow. Is it fabulous!
I always say that if I go out I spend, and it’s still true, but I also have really good times when I go out and what’s wrong with getting surprise gifts? Not a thing, as long as the gifts don’t eat or eliminate.
February 17th, 2007
You need to have used up, given away or disposed of a lot of pantry stuff soon. If it is too precious to dispose of, pack it away very well, with tape, staples and alarms, or freeze it at the very back of the freezer.
You will not need: pasta, wine, soft drinks (sodas), white rice, bread, potatoes, cornstarch (flour), flours in general, prepackaged-premade anything. I have saved enough potatoes to make the fattening dish I promised Palma.
You will continue to use whole grain things you may have, like brown rice, barley, farro (spelt) and a modicum of lentils and beans. I will be doing a big shopping shortly and will publish my list.
During the course of the blog’s diet, I will be posting loads of non-food things. I am more than a cook, you are more than an eater, we are in the midst of many miraculous things.
I am busily planning a first-in-a-lifetime trip to Italy for six American ladies who are the descendants of my dear friend Jo. I am working on the plans and details for this year’s cookery school. I am putting together a fashion project besides the usual column. I am angling for a video editing project I am dying to do. Life can be as full as you choose it to be . I like mine brimming.
What are you doing? I am a vampire for ideas!
February 15th, 2007
Going on a diet for whatever reason is hard. Staying on it is harder.
I think you have to be fairly focussed on yourself to make it work. It needs to be something you do for yourself. Your needs have to be explored and ways devised to fulfill them. The pleas of others who want to go out for dessert must be met stony-faced. ‘Try just one’ is inadmissible. ‘You don’t need to lose another ounce’ is: 1) flattery or 2) meant to make you fail—presuming that you are being sensible about your goal. Your weight and your body is your business, and until you find yourself sailing past your goal and thinking “just another five pounds and I will be perfect,” don’t listen to anyone.
You will not be perfect. Ever. If perfection were attainable, you wouldn’t reach it via a diet. Better, or healthier, or fitter, or at standard for blood pressure are all reasonable goals. Set one reasonable goal, keep your eye on it and make a contract with yourself to stop dieting and start toward a permanently healthier life the day you reach that goal.
You should make other changes in your life while dieting, but what they might be varies. Everybody is different. I have promised myself a fire in the fireplace every night and fresh flowers every Thursday. Both of those things will make me feel cosseted, but I already have the wood and the fireplace and flowers cost only €5 for a huge bunch, so they are both easy to do. There are side benefits. Getting in the wood, cleaning out the ashes, taking off the doors, putting them back on—these are physical activity that will do me some good. Hardening the flowers, choosing containers, cutting and arranging them, disposing of the cuttings in the compost bin—those are also busywork I like and don’t currently do.
Line up some projects. There couldn’t be a better time to have projects. The stronger sun will reveal things often hidden in winter gloom. After the house has been closed up for a long time, almost everything in it could do with some fresh air or some sunshine. If you sew you might choose this time to look for patterns and fabrics that you’ll be pleased to wear when you are fitter. Look at the designer runway shows and see what influences you might incorporate in your wardrobe. Most of us can’t put those clothes on right off the runway, but they usually include some genius ideas that work with real people’s clothing. I wouldn’t recommend cutting something out before you are fairly close to your goal. Every time you shape up the end result is a bit different, you know. Aging, level of physical activity, lots of things can change a healthy hourglass figure to a healthy androgynous figure or vice versa.
See your doctor if you plan to aggressively alter your weight. It will be helpful to have beginning and finishing medical data. Remember, this is a reduced carbohydrate diet I propose, not a low carbohydrate diet, nor yet a high protein diet.
If you are over fifty, check your height. If you are a little shorter than you were, ask your doctor to book a bone density test. Attacked early, osteoporosis can be treated with great success. Remember, weight bearing exercise is just as important as calcium consumption.
I have also promised myself to dress attractively the whole time. That’s mostly to overcome the shock of seeing my dieter’s face when I pass a mirror. Things tend to get ugly before they get better! I have never understood why someone with a thin face loses weight there first. I am going to go out more often, but not for meals. It’s hard here, because meals are included in every plan! Want to see the sea? Where shall we eat? Maybe movies, although they are all dubbed into Italian. It’s so weird to hear Helen Mirren or Keanu Reeves jabber away in Italian.
It won’t take long for the real work to start, though. After my poor face, internal fat—that defined as most dangerous to your health—will start to disappear. A shrinking waistline proves it. It seems that’s the time when your appetite starts to diminish quite a lot. Maybe your appetite takes most of its clues from fat that is a close neighbor? Anyway, in just a few weeks your stomach won’t hold more than a little food at a time, which is probably how the body was designed to work.
Over time the lumps and handles and jigglies will go away as well. The last thing seems to be the feet, but you can lose weight in your feet, too. I don’t buy clothes as things change. I just hike up what I have and add more belts.
Over the next weeks I will be showing you things that help me stay content and healthy. Most you can buy in Italy, some not. I know I used to be able to find everything in the USA. The diet I will follow is designed for people with cholesterol problems, and that is why it contains some things you might not be familiar with. You can easily find and follow a different regime, I just don’t recommend the Atkin’s diet because it is so unbalanced.
Step One
Get rid of refined and sugary foods entirely.
Step Two
Plan on how to keep yourself happy and satisfied.
Step Three
Buy whole foods.
Step Four
Come by to get support, to get recipes and to share yours with us. Keep a record for yourself of how you are doing, and if you feel like it, share it. If not, it is none of our business!
February 13th, 2007
First, there will be at least one more enormously fattening and delicious recipe feast before we go all slimmerish. I promised Palma of Palma’s Passions to your right to make up a dish she didn’t know existed and post it.
I promised something to the folks at my newsgroup, but it has temporarily fled my mind. I remember at the time I thought it was a very simple thing, but you know they are all foreigners over at the UK, so one has to generously help them understand the wider world over the pond. If any of you happen by, will you remind me what it was? I am far too busy using my Brain Age program to recall. I am making progress, and depending on which of the four mes that are in the machine, my brain is somewhere from 21 years old to 43 years old. I think the discrepancy lies in my resentment of the “others” once in while, which causes me to make them do the hard versions of the exercises late at night before sleeping.
I was inspired to make scones last night by the long-gone blueberry scones, and they were totally different. They were also very good, but not like Barb’s at all. The strange thing is that I used to make scones for eg when she was little, but they were always cooked on a griddle on a flame, and never baked. So this baked scone world is new to me. Last night’s recipe included raisins and chopped walnuts and were less sweet. They spread out a bit more than Barb’s, and were very crisp on top.
A reminder once more that you are invited to make something artful or arty from trash. You don’t have to actually make it, just drawing it up and designing it will do if you explain the concept. That’s how mine will be as I have no need for a second home and also don’t have a pool.
I have been reading much more about the miracles lurking inside of chilies. I have thoughts that I should eat one a day.
The latest fashion column will be along in a few days on Slow Travel. It’s a whole new thing this time. Watch for it.
February 9th, 2007
Yet another edible gift!
I dropped by to see Alberta yesterday, she of the artisanal pork, and only Carlo, Mr. Alberta, was at home. He told me to wait a minute because he had a gift for me. Out he ran and shortly returned with this. It is the cheek of a hog, which I think is hog jowl in the United States. It is cured by rubbing in various things, finished with black pepper, and hung for a while. I was pretty delighted to get this, because it isn’t always at my supermarket.
If you aren’t a purist, you can make recipes that call for speck, pancetta dolce or pancetta affumicata with guanciale. I usually end up substituting the other direction, because it is guanciale I sometimes can’t find. It can take the place of salt pork, but it really isn’t like salt pork. It’s drier for one thing. It isn’t as salty, either. My memories of salt pork are fading, since it really isn’t something I used a lot in my last years in America and I have now been away long enough not to recognize the names of the new movie stars. It is also no substitute for bacon. If you slice this and fry it you may be disgusted. You won’t be delighted.
My first stop was Olga’s house, because although Carlo told me to keep it in a cool place, I wasn’t sure how cool or which place I own that might work. Olga thinks the guest room, but I think I should run a poll asking who would be frightened by a piece of pork hanging over their bed before I do that. Any votes?
I couldn’t wait to try it. I quickly made some very thin slices with my sharpest French knife– actually my only sharp knife– and ate them. It is yummy. Thinly sliced on bread is one of the ways one eats guanciale here.
Today, realizing that the pantry is almost empty of non-diet foods and that the diet begins soon, I made a sort of amatriciana sauce for pasta. That’s one of the quickest and easiest and most versatile of quick sauces in our kitchens here, and this one was delicious. Cutting board to fork was maybe fifteen minutes. There’s no excuse for eating junky food when you can eat as well as I did in fifteen minutes without a microwave. I just used what was lying around to make it, too. Spaghetti because it was open, Parmigiano because it was there.
Two servings:
130 grams of spaghetti uncooked
about 30-50 grams of guanciale, rind removed and then diced smallish
1/2 onion, chopped
1/2 14 ounce tin of peeled tomatoes
1 clove of garlic
about 1 ounce of Parmigiano Reggiano, grated with my Microplane
Start a big pot of water to boil.
Put a largeish frying pan on to heat and throw the guanciale dice and the onion into it. The onion will sauté in the fat released by the guanciale, but do use a medium heat so as not to brown or scorch the onion.
Add salt to the water and then the spaghetti, pushing it down to cover it as it softens. Stir once. As soon as it boils, ladle some of the pasta water into the frying pan to speed the onion cooking. Then add the tomatoes, breaking them up with a wooden spoon. Throw in a whole clove of garlic. Bring to a simmer. Grate the cheese into a pasta bowl.
When the spaghetti is al dente, drain it, remove the garlic clove from the sauce, add the spaghetti to the sauce, turning until it is well coated, then turn off the heat, toss the grated cheese over it and stir it in. Serve smoking hot.
There’s no photo of the pasta, because I ate it immediately and virtually smacked my lips continuously.
February 6th, 2007
These were a very nice and unusual holiday gift to me from the Barb of Barb and Art.
What I received was a tightly sealed plastic jar with an intriguing powder dotted with dark. When I opened it, there was a tiny Ziplocked bag with directions. Add egg, water and mix a bit, knead a tiny bit, pat out and bake. So I did. And this was the result: blueberry scones.
Delicious they were. I made half the recipe, six scones, and I ate them all, sent Barb a thank you email and fell onto my bed, not to wake for nine hours.
I know in general what goes into scones, but I don’t know the recipe for these. You need to click on the link at the right, which will take you to Barb’s site. Then you can ask Barb. She’s a very generous lady and she just might tell you. If you buy her house I can almost guarantee she’ll give you the recipe. And then you’d be my neighbor.
That, by the way, is one of my new dessert plates. They are contemporary Umbrian hand-painted pottery from Deruta, and of the ten none are mated. If you buy Barb’s house, she might throw some of those in, too.
February 4th, 2007
This is the same view as in the banner, but at dawn of February mornings. I wish I could show it to you on a black background, because it took my breath away. Nothing to it, until you see how much there actually is.
Aha! I now can show this to you the way I like it best, right here.
February 3rd, 2007
Pasta e Fagioli
This is the way we make around my neighborhood. Every part of Italy has their own version and we love them all. This, however, is the one I love the most.
It took me years to try this. It just didn’t sound good to me. I must have been stupid. I have heard people around the world talk about their mamma’s or their nonna’s pasta e fagioli. How could it be anything but a great classic if every Italian loves it? Italians know their food.
It’s cheap, healthy and delicious. It’s jammed with vegetables, it sticks with you through a winter day and is good for everything that ails you. A grilled piece of bread rubbed lightly with garlic and then drizzled with good oil and sprinkled with salt would be great with this.
I made this twice this winter. The first time I used up some borlotti beans, which resemble pinto beans. The color was really unattractive and reminded me of camouflage. I figured I had little to hide, so I made it again with my favorite canellini white beans. This is the result. Those are orecchiette in there for pasta, because that’s what was open. I usually make the pasta, especially of someone is coming to eat. The glistening bits on top are from a thread of new oil drizzled over it, and the brown bits are prosciutto. You can easily leave out the prosciutto and make it vegetarian, but you’ll miss a faint smokiness if you do.
For four people:
400 g beans, about a pound, soaked overnight and then boiled until tender in salted water to cover
Prosciutto crudo chopped fine 50g, or a similar amount of smoked pancetta (affumicata)
1 onion, chopped fine
1 carrot chopped fine
1 leg of celery chopped fine
a pinch of crushed chili
2-4 tablespoons of olive oil
about ½ teaspoon salt
1 potato diced
Parsley to taste
100 g pasta boiled in salted water (or maltagliate made with 100 g flour and 1 egg, then rolled and cut into irregular quadrangles)
After you have boiled the beans, mince finely the vegetables and ham for the soffritto—I chopped everything in the food processor including the smoked pancetta I used in place of the ham. Heat the oil in a large, heavy pot and add the soffritto mixture, salting it a bit. Stir and sauté this until the onion begins to brown, then add 2/3 of the cooked beans, all of the cooking water and the potato and cook for about 30 minutes. Cook the pasta very al dente, drain the water into the soup pan, and then use a stick blender (or a food mill) to puree what is in the pan.
Add the whole beans that remained and the pasta and gently heat to serving temperature.
This is typically served with a thin thread of fresh extra virgin olive oil swirled over the top.
If you want to serve only part of it, freeze the part not wanted after adding the whole beans, but before adding the pasta. Freeze the uncooked pasta separately after drying a bit if you have made it at home. You may use purchased pasta, and the best faux homemade is to cut into rhomboids a sheet of the thin, fresh lasagna pasta you can buy at shops.
This is a great dish and I think we need to send it to Pasta Presto Night. Perfect cold weather food and the white beans are now fresh.
February 3rd, 2007
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