SuzySushi

Fine Japanese sushi bars often have an omikase menu where the chef decides what foods to put in front of you. It's acceptable to request that the chef omit some particular fish that you don't like, but otherwise the choice is entirely up to him.

Water?

We usually buy our mooncakes freshly made from Hee Hing, a local Chinese restaurant. They have a big banner outside their place when it's "mooncake season," and the mooncakes are invariably sold out long before the festival! Price sounds about right.

Bravo, Jackal10!!! So, how did they taste?

I just figure when mooncakes are around, they serve as the whole meal... plenty of carbohydrates, protein, fat... a few green veggies and I'm set!

More common? Maybe not. Common, yes. Another plant high in oxalic acid is taro leaves, used in Hawaii as a spinach-like vegetable. It's either boiled and the first water discarded, or cooked for a long, long time. Anthropologically speaking, I don't think that steaming was a part of most European peasant cultures, where foods got cooked by placing them in a pot of boiling water.

In my 20s, I had TWO Thanksgiving dinners every year: one at my parents' house, and the other at my best friend's house. Why? Because my mother was a terrible cook and my best friend's mother was a fabulous one. After my grandmother (who made the Thanksgiving dinners when I was a child) passed away, my mother never made a full Thanksgiving spread -- just turkey, stuffing OR mashed potatoes (not both), a frozen veggie, and canned cranberry sauce. Ice cream for dessert (no pie!). And the holiday gathering was just my parents, my sister, and me. My friend's mother, OTOH, had a groaning board of delights, not only the traditional American foods, but Syrian-Jewish dishes like lamb stew with apricots, okra with tomatoes, and homemade rugelach (just in case there wasn't enough else to eat, I suppose!). There was a crowd of at least a dozen friends and extended family, and interesting dinner-table conversation. My mother, of course, was extremely jealous that I preferred to spend the holiday at my friend's house rather than with family. So I'd end up eating one Thanksgiving dinner for lunch and another for dinner, or dinners two days in a row! Of course that isn't possible with your sister a five-hour drive away, Bavila, but maybe you can go to her place for Thanksgiving day, and have your Thanksgiving dinner on the weekend a week earlier or a week later (and nothing says you can't celebrate it on Canadian Thanksgiving Day in October!).

Wow! Lots of dim sum I've never seen here...

Our dinners have mostly been very plain these past two weeks as I've tried to accommodate my daughter's new dietary restrictions, aseverything needs to be weighed and measured and carbs & protein calculated. Last night, though, my husband and I had "breakfast for dinner": eggs scrambled with a bit of leftover smoked salmon, diced roma tomatoes, shredded spinach, and dill, served with German sunflower-seed bread. Tonight was more exotic: Rogan Josh made with lamb, onions, baby eggplants, and carrots, served over cooked whole wheat berries. (I cheated and used a prepared spice paste from Asian Home Gourmet.) Dessert both nights is fresh mango -- Tommy Atkins variety last night and Keitt tonight -- we're having a great mango season in Hawaii, after a terrible one last year. Yum!!!

Not disagreeing with you about incidence of diabetes, but something to think about: I've always been very suspicious about the figures concerning diabetes - and particularly Type 1 - from any developing country. I always have the sneaking suspicion that, in rural areas particularly, it is massively under-reported and under-treated. If you have insulant dependent diabetes in such areas, you probably die. How many doctors in rural areas recognize it, or have the money to do tests if they do, or how many people have the money for and access to insulin? I've met (well-off, urban) people with Type 1 in China: most of them were not taking insulin, but taking some type of Chinese medicine for it instead at the advice of their doctor. And they all had the acetone-scented breath typical of diabetes being massively out of control. That's the kind of thing that makes me very doubtful about figures concerning incidence of diabetes in poorer countries. That, and the amazing coincidence between getting more wide-spread medical care in any country as the country gets richer and suddenly discovering more cases of diabetes. I've always been doubtful, there also, that it is increasing wealth creating more diabetes (as is usually claimed), and wonder whether instead it is the wealth that is allowing it to be discovered. ← You're right... I was using too broad a brush in characterizing "Asia." Specifically, the figures I saw in Type 1 Diabetes (2005) by Ragnar Hanas, MD, PhD, a leading endocrinologist from Sweden, compare European countries, North America (Canada and USA separately), Australia, New Zealand, and Japan -- all of which are considered "first world" countries with good medical care. The risk of developing Type 1 diabetes before age 15 is 6.6 per 1,000 in Finland, 4.5 in Sweden, 3.9 in Canada, 2.3 in the USA, 1.2 in Germany and 1.1 in Italy, for instance (source cited was a study by Diabetes Mondiale Project Group published in Diabetes Care2000;23:1516-26). Citing other sources, the same book notes "Although 120 million people live in Japan (compared to Sweden's 8 million) the actual number of Japanese children and teenagers with diabetes does not exceed the number in Sweden." and also "Diabetes is more common among Asian immigrants living in UK than in their relatives remaining in their countries of origin" -- though this might be because it is under-reported and under-treated in their countries of origin.

Count me in! I'm going to fool around with some jelly mooncakes and maybe the snow skin ones if I can find the koh fun -- I've never noticed it in markets near me, but then I've never gone looking for it, either! I have some nice plastic molds from Malaysia that I bought on eBay last year. They look like an ice cube tray with fancy indentations (several different shapes). I'd gotten them to make plain Jell-O, but now realize they were probably meant for mooncakes!

Another difference in the traditional Chinese diet vs. American diet (and I'm surprised no one has brought this up before) is the Chinese omission, for the most part, of dairy products. No milk, cheese, no butter. Because meats are used in small proportions in the traditional diet, this means the Chinese diet typically contains much less saturated fat than the typical American diet. Re: Ben's comment on diabetes, Type 2 diabetes is not caused by eating simple carbohydrates and refined grains, although being overweight is a definite risk factor. And the highest incidence of Type 1 (insulin dependent) diabetes is actually in Scandinavia -- Finland, to be precise -- while Asia has a low incidence of Type 1. There's a definite genetic factor involved in Type 1.

My favorite's also Berthillon. I love their cassis sorbet. When they're closed in the summer, there's a cafe on the Champs d'Elysee that carries their ice cream (it has a sign in the window).

Another way is to place the spinach in a fine-mesh strainer and press it down with the back of a spoon.

And four more books for me: Sensational Vegetable Recipes (a $2.99 promo from Borders, published by Bay Books) Appetizers, Finger Food, Buffets & Parties from Hermes House Cooking for Fun for Kids with Diabetes and The Everything Indian Cookbook by our own Monica Bhide

Thanks, Alberts!! Eveyone has such great things to say about the pump. We will definitely check into it when the time is right. I may have said this before in this thread, but we're lucky that Hawaii is one of the states that's pro-active about diabetes and diabetes education. It is automatic that she gets an IHP in school. A public health nurse is going over to her school to train the teachers and staff on what to do in an emergency; 30 people have signed up already!!! Her teacher taught her classmates about diabetes and about the warning signs for low blood sugar even before a diabetes educator came in! I agree with you 1,000% about stem cell research. I personally feel we're this close to a cure for diabetes, and it'll be one of those "Eureka!" moments like discovering the spiral form for DNA. Suzy

Yup, they're doing an IHP. (That's what the public health nurse met with me for.) Sorry to hear about your child's food allergies {{{{{{{hugs}}}}}}}. Suzy

In a way, maybe we're lucky then that Wendy is such a picky eater! That, combined with her currently restrictive diet, means that she's not going wild trying a lot of different foods and we'll be able to more easily discover the relationship between the carb-protein-fat components and her blood sugars. She eats the same breakfast every day, for instance, and goes through stages of wanting the same dinner for days in a row! (I'd get bored, but she doesn't!) Re: pizza, interestingly enough, the manual the hospital gave us, which was developed by the diabetes center at the U. Colorado (one of three pediatric centers in the USA, apparently), suggests pizza as a bedtime meal/snack for sleepovers. It says that the kids get so excited at sleepovers (which I can attest to, by my sister calling them "wakeovers"!) that they need the extra fat & protein to keep their blood sugars from dropping during the night! I suspect we're locked into the OneTouch glucometer. That's what our HMO gave us, and those are the test strips they supply (the test strips are very expensive, as I'm sure you know -- list price for OneTouch is $35 for 50 strips, and we go through at least 5 strips a day, but pay only a $15 co-payment for a 1-month's supply, which goes down to $10 if we order 3 months at a time). Also, the meter itself can be downloaded right into the diabetes educator's computer to provide her with a record of the log. The test strips come packed in plastic canisters, 25 to a canister, about the size of a roll of film. A canister fits right into the meter case, though we do need to remove each strip individually. These are glossy plastic about 1" long x less than 1/4" wide. They literally require only one drop of blood, and we get a reading in 5 seconds! I remember the old paper strips that used to seep purple dye over everything they touched, so this is a great improvement! Suzy

Hey, Terri, this is my baby we're talking about!!! I'm a voracious reader, and if it concerns her health, I'm gonna read everything I can get my hands on. I'm also not shy about talking about health problems and asking for advice! The squeaky wheel, and all that... No one else has gone into the relationship between fat and blood sugars yet... probably because her exchange diet is so restrictive anyway. I'm sure the dietician will discuss it, and if he doesn't bring it up, I will! I'll look into the Accuchek Softclix. She's using a OneTouch meter and the lancet pen that came with it. My husband uses the same kind and hasn't complained about it, but he's not a child with sensitive fingers. The ADA has a support group here for parents of children with diabetes. We're planning to attend their back-to-school event next week so we can meet some parents and Wendy can meet some kids in her situation. She's currently the only child in her school wih diabetes.

OHHHH!!!! So that's what they mean by "A watched pot never boils." We never bothered covering the pots when putting up water to boil, so I could never figure that one out! As a child, I made sure to turn away from the stove!!!

We have lots of dried chick peas in the house as "emergency food." I sometimes cook them for hummus and stews. Do I roast them just dried, or soak them first?

Verrry interesting!!! I wonder if any reputable diabetes researchers in the West have done any studies about the impact of beans on diabetes management, and if the results can be quantified. That's something to check into further in my *free* time. No problem! According to the book, 1 ounce of "Chinese sausage" (generic - no brand listed) contains 100 Calories, 2g Carb, 8g Fat (3g Sat. Fat), 6g Protein, and 246mg sodium; it's classified as 1 high-fat meat exchange. I'll check my supermarket next shopping trip to see how this lines up with the nutrition panels on the packaged brands.

Yeah, a popular dish in Japan. See post #15 in http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showto...45036&hl=imaiya ← Yes, that's them!

Maybe Alice was into Feng Shui? It's good to stir the spirits in the right direction, you know. Don't want to upset things. ← Hmmmn... in Switzerland, it's traditional to stir fondue in a figure 8. That makes sense, though: if it's stirred in one direction only, the cheese tends to glop up around the spoon.

Sony, thanks for your advice and insight! We just came back from about a 2-hour session with our diabetes educator, in which she discussed the results of the tests done in the hospital, which confirmed that Wendy is Type 1 :-(( , reviewed Wendy's blood sugars for the past week, and modified her insulin dosages to adjust for a "low" she seems to get shortly before lunch each day, and a "high" reading she's been having before dinner. To get technical, this means less fast-acting insulin in the morning, plus a third shot of just 2 units in the afternoon -- BUT that will allow her to eat a more substantial afternoon snack since she's been coming home from school hungry. We also got an insulin pen for the afternoon shots and to carry if we might be out at dinnertime. We're to check back by phone with the diabetes educator by Monday at the latest (sooner if there are any problems -- she's available 24/7 by pager!) to fine-tune it further. And we have an appointment with a dietitian at the beginning of September, to discuss a carb-counting diet. On the advice of the diabetes educator, we just picked up a copy of an amazing book, The Diabetes Carbohydrate and Fat Gram Guide: Quick, Easy Meal Planning Using Carbohydrate and Fat Gram Counts. It gives nutritional breakouts (calories, carbs, fat/saturated fat, protein, cholesterol, sodium, fiber, and servings/exchanges) for thousands of foods, from generic ingredients to brand-name prepared foods, fast foods in restaurants, and ethnic foods (ever wonder about the nutritional content in raw walrus meat or nopales?). That'll make carb-counting a lot easier. The crackers following glucose tablets is also what our diabetes management plan recommends. As for glucose gel, it recommends a tube of CakeMate decorating gel (not frosting) -- less expensive, more compact ("which would you rather carry around"), and it does exactly the same thing! The supermarkets around here must be wondering why there's suddenly been a run on the white CakeMate! LOL! Her blood sugar has actually been okay during the night -- pretty near perfect at bedtime and slightly elevated in the morning. Her bedtime snack has been milk or yogurt plus a starchy carb, and we may discuss adding a little protein, too. I'm curious to hear what else the kids learned at diabetes camp. We *just* missed this year's session here. Maybe next year!