Married to Amazement

Let me tell you about my son, Noah. This kid is really something. He's clever, he's creative, he's so darn funny all the time. He's confident in directions I have always dreamed of but never managed to reach myself, and he has a way of pulling people out of their shells - it's both encouraging and inspiring. And he's smart as a whip - always curious about absolutely everything, since Day 1. Yesterday, he turned 9, and a few days before his birthday, he helped me make a test recipe related to a new-ish interest of his: Greek mythology. We were talking about ambrosia, the food of the gods, and he was wondering what it was - I said the old myths are vague on it, but back in the 60s and 70s, there was a pretty liberal definition of the word "salad," and one such salad from the time was called "ambrosia." So naturally, we were on a quest to find a recipe. Unsurprisingly, none of the Weight Watchers cards or diet cookbooks had anything close - I

I had a pretty decent week last week, even though I did not do any recipe tests ... but I have a good reason this time! I spent all of last week up to my elbows in prep for Passover. Deep cleaning every inch of the kitchen, getting our pots and pans and dishes out of storage - and mostly eating just leftovers and odd combinations of things to make sure our kitchen was ready for the holiday .   Our seders went as well as they could, and although those two special dinners are over, the rest of this week will be spent avoiding  chametz - bread/flour except in matzo, and also kitnyot -  things like legumes, corn, and grains. So no soy, no rice, no beans, no peanut butter - all on top of the usual kosher rules of specific meat and fish, plus no mixing meat and dairy. I met with my dietician before the holiday to talk through some of my food anxiety, and so far I think the advice and suggestions are working. I am doing my best with WW tracking, but also not driving myself crazy with numbers.

I took last week off ... from blogging, from recipe testing, and to be totally honest, from WW in general. I just hit a wall, and it happens sometimes. I usually give in and quit entirely, but I'm trying my hardest to not do that this time.  It just gets exhausting, you know? Tired of meal planning. Tired of prep cooking. Angry, even - why do I have to waste so much of my life thinking, planning, calculating? Jealous, too - no one else has to think this much about bites and tastes. There was also some anticipatory anxiety with Passover coming up at the end of this week - not only the usual stress of planning meals that can't have bread/flour but also soy, rice, beans, corn (so much of what I regularly eat), but this year there's the added nervousness about my ex-husband and his family coming to town to come to my family's seders. I am still very close with my ex-mother-in-law, and very lucky to have someone like her in my corner, especially when it comes to the absolute

  Like most of the Weight Watchers and diet-focused cookbooks, this one starts with a brief introduction to healthy eating habits. There's advice and suggestions, and even though it's nearly sixty years later for many of these books, the advice is still pretty sound. For example, weighing yourself only weekly or monthly to keep track of progress. WW has an app these days for tracking your food and exercise, and as much as I like that part of the app, I despise the social media aspect they've included as well. The intention is good, especially the last few years when in-person socializing has been minimal or non-existent for folks: it's important to uphold Jean Nidetch's first goal for WW, which was community . That said, most of the posts I see on the WW community page are rife with disordered eating habits and language. Folks weighing themselves daily or more often, folks double-tracking on WW and other calorie or macro-counting apps to "make sure" they&#

A new cookbook today! And kind of an interesting one, in that it has "weight watchers" in the title, but it doesn't refer specifically to the program - in fact, this cookbook even predates Jean Nidetch's first meeting by a couple of years! When I was in high school, I took an Earth and Space science course, and one day before showing us a movie, the teacher cautioned us about "documentaries" and certain educational films, telling us to do our own research and discover what point of view and opinion is being centered, to guide our understanding and expectations. Then he showed us a movie about the terrific work being done by scientists to clean up oil spills and rescue affected animals. The film was produced by Exxon, naturally. This popped back in my mind as I perused this cookbook - promising glorious eating, talking about weight loss and management ... and printed/distributed by Wesson. The booklet starts with promises about the recipes - you'll eat al

Back on track this week and it feels so, so good - it's an exceptionally big moment of pride too, because I was on Spring Break this past week, so I didn't have my usual routines, but I *still* managed to lose all of last week's regain plus some more. I biked a few times, went for a few walks, and made sure I made good food choices. This week I'm back on campus, and I'm hoping the return to routine will help me get a second good week in a row.  I've got a few interesting recipes lined up that I'm excited to try this week, too, so that's motivational also! Looking at my graph from the last five or so months, it's good to see a pattern. There are always ups, but there are more downs, and the overall trend is downward. I persist, and that's what matters - not being successful all the time, but never giving up when the going gets tough.

Further north for today's recipe, from the Scandinavia section of the International Cookbook. Admittedly, my knowledge of Scandinavian food is limited to infrequent trips to Ikea cafeterias - but I have enjoyed everything I've tried, at least. Meatballs? Love 'em. Lingonberry jam? Delightful. Princess cake? Always. A few months ago I read "A Man Called Ove" by Fredrik Backman, and I was completely spellbound by the writing. I've been seeking out his other works since then, and equally loved "My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry." I'm in the middle of "Anxious People" right now, and finding myself just as fascinated and rapt by the story.  They're all so, so good - and all set in Sweden, so naturally, I've been curious about the area and the culture I've been surrounding myself with in the stories. What better introduction than food? I love literally everything about this recipe - salmon is delicious, dill is m

Another day, another dish - this week, I'm focused on fish. I took chicken out of the freezer, but since I've made a few different chicken dishes so far, I wanted to try something totally different. Today's recipe used canned salmon; later this week, I'll make one with a salmon fillet. I enjoy seafood very much; having grown up on the Connecticut shoreline, we ate fish and shellfish fairly often. I remember my dad would go out on a chartered fishing boat with some folks he knew from the hospital where he worked, and they'd come home with pounds and pounds of prepared fish fillets - the folks on the boat would scale, debone, trim, and package them so the folks on the boat could just sit back, relax, and catch the fish. We'd always end up with a freezer full of striped bass for the winter. Nowadays, we try to eat fish at least once a week, but kosher rules and geography limit us a little bit - in central California, our fresh fish options are just non-existent. I

Oh, what a week. It was one of those Perfect Storm of Anxiety and Stress weeks: testing for students, working with their general exhaustion and apathy right before Spring Break, the shift and sleep troubles from the spring time change, phone calls with family about upcoming holidays and visits ... no rest for the wicked this week. It made for a challenging week, and my WW app showed it. Usually I try to get at least 5 blue dots a week - days when I am within my daily Points goal. The best weeks I've had, I've had 6 or 7.  This week? Three. I keep going back to what the dietitian told me in December when we talked about my anxiety about being in Connecticut, the end of my dad's life, and the usual stress that comes with visiting family even when there's not a significant, life-changing event on the horizon. She reminded me that there's no wagon to fall off of - it's just your life, and sometimes the situation calls for flexibility. I knew this would be a tough we

Back to the International cookbook for this one!  The "Marengo" of Chicken Marengo was a battle from 1800, a decisive victory for Napoleon Bonaparte and the French army. The skirmish took place in Northern Italy and succeeded at defeating the Austrian troops who had been holding positions there due to the ongoing French Revolutionary wars of the 1790s to early 1800s. The recipe's legendary origin is on the Marengo battlefield, where Napoleon's chef needed to assemble a meal with whatever was available, and because of the victory, it became something of a superstition for Napoleon and he insisted on having it after every future battle. The reality is more likely that a restaurant made a dish in his honor later, and that recipe was passed down and re-created many times since. Considering I'm a French teacher, it might be a little surprising that it has taken me this long to try something from the French recipe section! Even more interesting still, is that this isn&#