SuzySushi

A Japanese friend of mine once served fresh ginkgo nuts as an appetizer with drinks before dinner. She shelled them, soaked them to remove the papery skins, threaded them on (soaked) bamboo skewers a few at a time, and broiled them until they were hot and golden. She then served them on small plates, sprinkled with salt. Re: Tepee's post below, that probably should be "blanched" rather than soaked. I didn't see that part of the preparation.

Poor bat!!!

That gadget that makes cubic hard-cooked eggs!

My daughter has an insulated soft plastic lunch bag that she sticks in her backpack. The little containers perpetually vanish, so I save empty yogurt cups, etc. for such purposes. She forgot her lunch bag at school once (not recently) and the ants colonized it over the weekend. After that major yuck, she's never forgotten it again! I usually prepare sandwiches the night before and freeze them, then stick them in the bag frozen so that they'll defrost and be "fresh" by lunchtime, or I stick in a frozen juice-pack that doubles as an ice pack and also defrosts by lunch. (Why do frozen juice packs seem heavier than liquid ones???)

Thanks, Anzu! We already have a small kitchen scale, but a larger digital one is a good idea, now that I'll be weighing and calculating a lot more. And placing the plate on the scale and resetting it to zero is a brilliant idea! All this time, I've been weighing foods in the scale's "scoop," having to transfer them onto the plate (and still have them visually resemble something edible). Dumb, dumb, dumb!!! BTW, I can't thank you enough for your tip the other day about not asking first off "How were your blood sugars?" I've vowed to keep my daughter's life as *normal* as possible!

Interesting!! I've bookmarked the website to read later. I'll make sure to pick up some chana dal next time I'm at the Indian market (or if our local health food store carries it). It's fascinating to find out how people in other countries manage the disease -- sometimes in ways quite different from the old American easy fix of eiliminating sugar.

I recall seeing dried straw mushrooms someplace on my shopping rounds, either in Chinatown, one of the big Asian supermarkets, or the gourmet dried mushroom section of a regular supermarket. Will make a mental note to look for them. I've never seen fresh straw mushrooms. It seems to me they're not being cultivated fresh in the USA; don't know why. (More research, more research.... mutters.)

So sorry to hear about your brother! I'll read up more about the water.

Good timing for this thread! As some of you may know from another thread, my daughter (who'll be 9 next month) was just diagnosed with diabetes. She's a picky eater, so making sure that she eats the required amount of carbs & protein for lunch at school can be difficult. In the past, if she hasn't liked what they have for lunch, she's left it over. She can't do that any more. So I'm hungry for lunch ideas she will eat! (30 grams starchy carbs, 2 ounces protein, 1 fruit) Some good ideas here... keep 'em coming!

Oh, yeah! Mac & cheese with salsa. Gotta be the Kraft blue box or a cheap supermarket brand.. none of that Annie's healthy stuff!

Here, some temples hold the festival in mid-July while others hold it in mid-August. This year, the toro-nagashi was scheduled to coincide with the American Memorial Day holiday at the end of May, instead of being at the end of the O-Bon season! But we went to a Bon dance two weeks ago, and there's another coming up in our neighborhood next weekend.

I'm wondering it the Chinese 7th Moon festival is related to the Japanese O-Bon festival, when the ancestors return to earth for several days. I would think so, because the Japanese borrowed many traditions from China. I'm not sure of food-related traditions in O-Bon because I'm not Japanese, but I know that food offerings like mochi rice cakes are placed in front of household alters. In Hawaii, most of the Buddhist temples mark the festival with evening O-Bon line dances (many of the participants wear yukata - summer kimono) and outdoor food booths. It's pretty festive as far as festivals for the dead go. Then lanterns are lit and floated out to sea to help send the souls of the deceased back to the other world.

When in Hawaii, avoid Waikiki and anything that purports to be a luau.

Love it! As an ex-New Yorker, I know exactly the kitchens Arthur Schwartz was talking about, from the "Murphy kitchens" in Tudor City to designer showcases in Connecticut that were spotlessly clean because the appliances had never been used! My first kitchen was the galley type: tiny gas stove, sink with about 1 foot of counter space, and small apartment-sized refrigerator, on top of which was my toaster-oven (later replaced by a microwave). I couldn't keep any foods in the cupboards because the heat from the steam pipe in the corner behind the stove made everything spoil (cans actually would burst!). My pots & pans and kitchen utensils hung on a pegboard on the opposite wall, and I had a shallow bookcase built-to-order for my pantry. To give you an example of how narrow the kitchen was, one time when I made Thanksgiving dinner I had trouble transferring the turkey from the oven to its serving platter. My mother and sister came in to help me, and the three of us had to back our way out of the kitchen because there wasn't room to turn around! Yet, I threw fabulous parties from that kitchen, for as many as 35 people (if you can imagine us sitting crowded on the living room floor!). My glass dining table doubled as a workspace, and a side table in the living room became a buffet. Lack of space was no obstacle.

Funny... in today's Honolulu Advertiser, the headline reads "White House picks Filipina chef"!!! Hawaii is so ethnically-oriented. (The body copy, however, focuses on Laura Bush's decision to name a woman to the position.)

Oh, my goodness! I never thought of topping ramen with kimchee. One of my favorite l.c. comfort foods (besides Japanese curry rice made from the instant "roux," or canned chili over rice) is shrimp-flavored ramen, drain off most of the liquid, add ponzu sauce, a spoonful of peanut butter, and hot sauce to taste. Voila: instant "Chinese sesame noodles."

I suppose I could experiment myself but... Does anyone know, if the aluminum is coated with Teflon -- e.g., if I use my Teflon-coated skillet -- will that work too?

PB&J is a "natural" for kids. Pre-cooked chicken breasts are a good idea. My daughter also likes string cheese so I should make sure to keep some of that around. And maybe peel & section oranges a few at a time and pack them into individual plastic bags or cups so they're ready-to-go as well.

Thanks, Chris! Good suggestions, particularly about writing up the information. We have a poster on hypoglycemia that I'e been giving out, but I should also add something about what times she's expected to eat and what foods and snacks she can have. (So many things to remember to do.... )

Whooh!!! What a lot of moral support and great advice!!! Thanks, everyone!!! Follow up: We went to the beach party/picnic yesterday with no problems. My daughter ate lunch beforehand (because it would have been too long to wait), and had her afternoon snack there. We alerted the two other families, so they brought along diet soft drinks and no sugary desserts. My daughter was too busy having fun swimming and playing with the other kids to pay much attention to food, anyway. We made her chew 2 glucose tablets before going in the water, and a friend's older-teenage daughter was with her all the time. She began feeling a little shaky from hypoglycemia just as we were pulling into our driveway (I guess all that activity really did burn off the carbs!), so she had another glucose tablet before going upstairs. When we tested her blood sugar 10 minutes later, it was 114, so that had been the right thing to do. That experience also taught me that I'll need to have some suitable foods she can eat "ready to go." If we're running late coming home, she can't wait half an hour for me to cook dinner -- I don't want to waste her carb/calorie allowances on emergency snacks. That means maybe I'll cook up extras of foods she likes and portion them into bags in the freezer, which I can pull out and reheat quickly in the microwave, or give her for a brown-bag lunch that can defrost in her backpack. Child-friendly lunch ideas needed: 2 carb exchanges + 2 protein exchanges + 1 fruit exchange! (1 carb exchange is about 15 grams carbs, 1 protein exchange is 1 ounce protein) TIA!

Love your story, highchef!! My tale isn't of dispatching an unwanted visitor with a kitchen utensil, but the kitchen-related aftermath. This happened to my sister a while back. During the middle of the night, she heard a ruckus coming from her living room: the cat was running around and making noise. My sister yelled at the cat, but the cat didn't quiet down. So she dragged herself out of bed (she was sick with the flu at the time) and went into the living room, where she saw that the cat had cornered a mouse and was feignting at it. The cat hadn't even touched the mouse, when the mouse up and died. ("Probably of fright," my sister said.) Well, what to do? She knew that if she left the mouse there, the cat would drag it around the house and play with it all night. But she didn't want to have to get dressed (besides her being ill, it was the dead of winter) and go outside to throw it in the trash. So she did the only thing she could do, running fever in the middle of the night. She carefully picked it up with a plastic baggie and put it in the refrigerator... which is where she discovered it the next morning!

In Honolulu, one corner of a major traffic interchange (Kapiolani Blvd. & McCully Street) seems deadly for restaurants. At least half a dozen have gone in & out of business in the 14 years I've been in Hawaii. On the opposite side of the street is a strip mall with several successful restaurants, but this corner is a loser. The difference? The parking for the loser location is in an alley behind the building, which no one can see from the street (you have to know to go).

Thanks, Susan! Good tips! The laminated info sheet is a very good idea, which I'll be sure to adopt. We're ordering a MedicAlert bracelet, which Wendy wants to wear as an anklet. (In Hawaii we're more likley to wear flip-flops than sneakers, so the shoelace tag won't work... LOL!) The nurse/educator offered to give a talk about diabetes to her classmates and teacher, and the school nurse is amenable to the idea, too. (We haven't spoken with her teacher yet... will do that Monday.) We'll also be putting a chart up in the classroom so the other kids can help watch out for symptoms of low blood sugar. And everyone will know where her glucose tablets are (in her waistpack) in case of emergency. Yes, yes, there is SOOOOO much we can learn from other families, and not from books! {{{{Hugs}}}}

Thanks for your long and thoughtful response, Anzu. {{{{hugs}}}} We're going to try to keep our daughter's life as normal as possible, and in fact are going to a (prescheduled) beach party/picnic this afternoon. She's more interested in the swimming than the eating, but we're making sure to bring along snacks she can eat. (Along with her test meter kit and glucose tablets.) Luckily, our health care provider (Kaiser Permanente, if you're familiar with that HMO) is up-to-date on diabetes care and does believe that everything can be eaten in moderation. She's on the strict diet just for a couple of weeks/months until we can establish a blood sugar log to see how her body reacts to carbs/insulin at different times of the day & night and with different activities. They then intend to put her on a carb-counting diet so she has more flexibility in what she eats. Right now, she's taking a mixture of short-acting (NovoLog) and medium-acting (NPH) insulin, with adjustments to the short-acting insulin based on a sliding scale of blood sugar readings. We got her a waistpack to carry her test meter in, along with sugar packets (in the pocket of the meter case itself) and glucose tablets. She can also use juice or candy for blood sugar lows, but we don't want her carrying around emergency foods that are so attractive to other kids that they'll try to "trade"! I know it's impossible to completely do away with the "why me?" resentment, but hope that with a flexible diet plan, she won't feel that she's left out of other kids' activities. The current wisdom from our HMO and in the diabetes "bible" (which was developed by the University of Colorado) says to allow the children to have "extra" treats at special occasions like birthday parties and Halloween and adjust the insulin as needed. (In fact, the book says that kids may not even need the extra insulin because the excitement from the activities burns off more calories!) I think she'll be pushy enough to stand up for herself to adults... she already announced in the supermarket that she's looking for the sugar-free version of such-and-such because she has diabetes. Good warning about the other kids who may want to sample her measured food! I'll have to discuss that "what if" situation with her. My husband and daughter both say that the shots don't hurt! (Something that's very hard for me to believe!!!) The needles are so fine these days. But the finger-sticks do, and unfortunately need to be done 4X daily until they come out with a totally reliable non-invasive testing method... May I PM you if I have other questions, etc.? I get the feeling some of the discussion may go way off base from what's supposed to be posted on the on the general forum! Suzy

Thanks, Katie & Deb, for your moral support!!! {{{{Hugs}}}} We missed the diabetes camp this summer, but at the end of this month, there's a back-to-school event for kids & their families which we're planning to attend. She's the only child in her school with diabetes, so we're hoping she can meet other kids in her age group there. Luckily there are a lot more sugar-free options these days, and the medical community no longer banishes sugar as long as it's used in moderation, so there aren't any completely "forbidden foods."