Darienne

I guess it's a Christmas gift that I bought myself. The owner of the condo where we are staying has agreed to sell me this set of nest acrylic bowls. Not a very good photo...

I tend to roast items that call for frying.

Delicious lunch...our meal to have guests. African Chicken Peanut Stew on Steamed Rice. Recipe here. We'll be eating it for days to come.

I keep thinking: eat out...eat out... or have something in.

Wow! That is so interesting. Thank you for doing that research. It is surely the same thing. Maybe I will have to take up African cuisine now. How exciting. Wonder how it turned up in southern Ontario.[Moderator note: This topic continues in Yard Sale, Thrift Store, Junk Heap Shopping (Part 2)]

Ditto from me. Such a good feeling when you do something so lovely for the first time.

A personal retrospect. Just went backwards through the posts I have made to this topic. Can't believe it. I came to this list with 126 cookbooks to my name. A very mixed lot. And that was from a background of hating to cook. Since Dec 08, via one method or other, I have acquired an additional 91 cookbooks. That's 3 years of incredible cooking and learning from this list. Possibly one of the most amazing and unexpected turns my life has taken. I now am proud/ashamed/embarrassed to say I own 217 cookbooks.

Additions to my cookbooks. Just love the American Amazon.com. Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams at Home Mark Bittmans' The Food Matters Cook Book. Shehad Husain & others. India's 500 Best Recipes. Lisa Fain's The Homesick Texan. Maria Teresa Bermudez. Mexican Family Favorites Cook Book. Plus three Tex-Mex second hand books and one bread book.

Dear Ilana, Thank you so much for your wonderful blog and for taking so much time to do a blog at such a busy time in your life. Really enjoyed it. Much to think about. All best, Darienne

Hey! Canadian cheese. Extra old aged 5 years Cheddar Cheese. Try it sometime!

We live in the far frozen North, so not counting what we can buy from local markets in our short growing season with its limited variety of whatevers, pretty much everything fresh comes from somewhere else. Some of it is good; much is basically cardboard replicas of what it stands for. DH has noticed that Driscoll strawberries from CA have improved greatly over the last few years. Grateful to finally have Poblanos available.

Did they heat the food for you? Was it hot? warm? cold? That bread looks interesting and very different. Enjoying the blog tremendously.

Thanks Shel_B and others.

Simply can't do one meal a day. But I don't think of food in units particularly. As for snacks...one little piece of 70% bittersweet chocolate has 50 calories and that works for me. As for the daily weighing thing...I resisted doing it for about 50 years now. Ed weighs himself every day. And then adjusts his food slightly by the results. He never talks about it. I am not aware of his actions really. It is his 'way' and for him it works. This is basically my last hurrah and if it will help this time, well, I'll do it. Congrats on your displayable abs. It's too late for me I fear. Enjoy it!

WOW! Three great replies. Thank you. I really do need to talk about these problems sometimes. Helps me get a hold on it. I've yo-yoed my entire life. Not a gigantic yo-yo and sometimes a 10-yr yo-yo, but I figure now that I am 70 (gasp!) and living My DH has decades of experience with this situation. He was a fat kid (think 1940s when NO ONE was fat) and it's colored his entire life. He has kept his weight off for over 40 years now, but he says only with diligence every day...a foodaholic. His success is both inspiring and terrifying to me at the same time. Robirdstx: Am right there with you with your 4 points. I now write my daily weight down on my wall calendar. Self control and memory. Try... Alas for the jeans. I used to live in them. Now my tailbone cannot cope with the flat-felled seam. That one is out. Nope, cannot tolerate stretch fabrics. Itchy. Mjx: Like your ideas but can't live with only one meal a day. But two of my meals are small, set ahead of time, and well-controlled, so there is that close similarity. I can stand two boring tasteless meals if one meal can be something I'd like to eat. Sparrowgrass: meal/calorie budget. Right. And so often desserts and other yummy bits are basically 'lousy' wastes of that precious budget. You wondered why you have bothered. If it isn't really going to taste 'Omigawd, that was delicious', then why do it? ( I usually supply the desserts wherever we are.) One thing we have in our household which I've mentioned before is the "Dessert as Dinner" night. It works so well and is so satisfying. Two nights ago was Mark Bittman's Free Form Apple Tart with Canadian 5-yr old cheese. Oh my. The only thing missing was Northern Spy apples. Last night I blew it unintentionally. Ate at a friends. Felt very constrained. Ate too much. Ate beef which I cannot do at night. Ate too much dessert. Paid for it all last night. Today is another day. (I've not yet weighed myself........ :sad: (BTW, I've taken off 18 pounds since Oct 1st. 12 to go to ideal weight. If I can make it. More importantly, if I can keep it off permanently. I'll settle for another 7 I think. For a while at least.) Thanks for writing and listening.

Thanks to all for the help and the recipes. I now have simply to pick amongst them all to make my own. Thanks.

Thanks Shel_B, It's not a case of liking or not liking certain ingredients. I love raisins, sugar, cinnamon, pineapple, etc, etc...I just want to make a simple non-dessert luchen kugel. I can't remember what we ate with it or if we ate anything with it. It's full of egg noodles, eggs and salt and pepper and that's all I can recall. I see most recipes have cottage cheese and sour cream. That sounds reasonable. It was nice and crunchy on top. I've now looked up dozens of recipes and they all seem to want to throw in sugar or raisins or something desserty. Even pineapples. Right. A traditional Polish/Russian noodle dish with pineapple. This is a dish you could eat instead of rice or potatoes or pasta. Sorry. I thought this would be so simple...

My friend is making Potato Latkes for our supper tonight and then I am to make Luchen Kugel for a few nights from now. Oddly enough there are only a couple of references to Luchen Kugel in eGullet and they are both for the sweet dessert kind. My Bubbi and my Mother both made the kind which was not sweet and that's what I want to make. My handed-down recipe is sitting 2000 miles away and it's been years since I last made it. Can someone give me a really good recipe for this? (A funny side story: My friend said that the local City Market carries Manischewitz egg noodles, neither the helper store person nor the Customer Relations Manager could find them. We looked in noodles and in specialty noodles, and the CRM said...have you tried the Oriental section? They should be there. Manischewitz, I said. It's Jewish. Oh, he said. Anyhow, they were in the 'Kosher' section. I didn't even know there were any Jews in this small Utah town.)

Here it is, December 22, the days are getting longer again...and just a few days to Christmas, that other time of year when all the goodies you might ever want to eat are being made and eaten. Who has a good strategy for getting through it all without putting back pounds or saying 'no' to everything?

Potato Latkes. My favorite of all time. First had them at my Bubbi's house when I was 7 years old. We will be having them very soon here. Followed in a day or so by Luchen Kugel. Heaven on earth. Oh, for a Montreal bagel to go with it all.

I suppose that problems arise in traveling because of the area you may be traveling in. We travel across the USA twice a year and it works out quite well for us, even with two large dogs. We start out with certain foods...we can't take any meat across the USA border...salmon, container of homemade hummus, and go from there. On the other hand, we have decided not to eat at certain 'useful' salad-providing chains anymore for political reasons which has added to the problem. But along the routes there are grocery chains which mean salad bars or made salads or salad fixing, augmented by tortillas, red salmon, hummus, etc. A plastic bag with pecans and 70% chocolate discs for desperate munchings. Breakfasts are granola for DH with yoghurt in our plug-in cooler and a shake for me using powdred protein isolate and my BlenderBottle (such a neat utensil). It's not exciting, but the chocolate and pecans help a lot and we don't a) get sick or oogy, and b) don't snack on calorie-laden 'crap'. But that's by land and in the USA. And really the above was our last year's resolution which we kept this November totally! First time. I'll get back with a new one...perhaps. Not this week.

Navajo Fried Bread. Get it once a year. Yummm.

Using for the first time this year was the Buddha's Hand citron. I had known about them for a few years but our trips to the Southwest were never in the season. Bought one in Albuquerque. Candied the flesh. Baked some of it into Shortbread cookies. Still have the syrup and next thing will be to try and turn the syrup into hard candies. Otherwise, the rest of the syrup will travel home with us.

We are sharing Christmas dinner with a friend and his cousin far from home. We are far from home, that is. Ed is making his traditional French Canadian Tortiere...for for the dinner and one for the Christmas Eve Potluck...and I am making a Lemon Cream Cheese pie with Chocolate ganache topping (finally found the recipe). I'll bring Brussels Sprouts and I'll be the only one eating them. The other two will be making whatever they decide to make. Going to attempt some small candies using the Buddha's Hand syrup.

I'm wondering it I can cook it to hard candy stage. I think I'll try it.