Tonight’s entree will be a yeast dough tart with a marmalade of onions, fennel and asian pears with balsamic vinegar, brown sugar, etc. Will probably add some mozarella cheese to make it a veggie pizza Can hardly wait.

I’ve always loved the TV series, the old ones and the newer ones with Pepin; thoroughly enjoyed the Charlie Rose interview with Streep and Ephron last night and I long to see the movie.

Had just listened to My Life in France by Julia Child – I’m an audio book person because of bad eyes and weak hands – and enjoyed her early years story. Fascinated that she’d really been hassled by the Cordon Bleu ???? school in getting in, getting certified, etc. Why should she been admitted into the real classes with the men or be certified like them. And the story of the book’s development, rejections, final acceptance, the promotion tours and the beginning of The French Chef were all fascinating vis a vis the American cultural realities as they changed over time. And wonderful must have been their small home in Provence next to her old friend/colleague but later pain in the neck as Julia tried to cope with American corporate realities.

Hooray for Julia and Alice and all the other real chefs featured on PBS (never mind the food channels which I don’t get) and all the healthy eating heroes in the production, preparation and consumption of all the staffs of life.

This morning my Dad and I attended a small town gardening workshop to let us know of what and how to plant for winter produce in our house gardens across our community. Folks are working to develop a quite large community garden in one of our parks. Staggering plan. The little workshop was fun, and it was fun to meet other gardeners and share our failures and victories and learn from one another. Looking forward to the next gathering, sorry I missed the ones in the late spring. We wouldn’t have made so many stupid choices in our first in years garden.

I’d read Kingsolver’s book about her Virginia gardening year with such joy and delight and that pushed me to try to do a garden, tho Dad said I shouldn’t try to really help as my balance is so iffy.

Just notice the above reference to The Flat Belly Diet and had to laugh. Had some time to kill at our small local library and noticed that book in the stack of donated books that were available for 25 cents each; so I bought it and enjoyed looking at the recipes and the plan. Thought it could be an easy fit with Ornish recipes and plans; except Flat Belly allows some fats, including olive oil, (consistent with my nutrition classes in the gerontology program I did a few years ago), whereas Ornish uses vegetable stock as the norm and would never drizzle olive oil on dishes as some chefs do all the time. Find myself being content to use the veg stock over the olive oil.

Thanks for the invitation to reaffirm and solidify changes in my life.

Blessings,

Re food – I’ve been following a new variant of South Beach (which I’ve followed less-than-religiously for several years- it stopped my gaining, and last year I lost about ten lbs.) called the Flat Belly Diet, after I gained four lb. rapidly, all in my abdomen.

It’s really just a very well-balanced diet, with a 4-day jump start that’s more restricted, but still well-balanced and filling, 4 meals a day, including a milk or yogurt and fruit smoothie. Focuses on monounsaturated fatty acid foods.
Lost the 4 new lbs plus almost 2 lb more, and the food was good,
good-tasting.

Also focuses on fresh, seasonal, no trans-fats, and no artificial sweeteners. (one of my reservations about many low-carb diets. It’s good, and because (almost) everything is made from scratch, it’s getting me back in the habit of cooking.
Also helps that it’s summer, with stores and farmers markets teeming with fresh-grown tomatoes, squash, melons, pears, peaches, green beans, onions, peppers, etc., etc.
I have bulgur for tabouli soaking/chilling right now. My favorite only-in-summer easy salad. Eat well, everyone. I’m off to the pool, shortly.

My youngest child, a male, is 24 years old. Fortunately, he has his father’s genes, which are skinny genes — not the type where eating an ice cream cone will instantly put on 20 pounds — like me! :-)

Anyway, he was forced to eat rather well, growing up, but lately, he has eaten a lot of fast food, because of his high-stress, many hours a day, job. I was shocked to hear him say he had gained 20 pounds in the past 2 months. He now calls himself “fat” which I find amusing (he is 6′1″ and weighs 200 lbs.) — he doesn’t know what FAT is — but if he keeps up these eating habits, he WILL be fat.

barbara’s list of unliked foods:

black licorice
anise
dry, packaged, shredded coconut
cilantro

That’s it. Now you see my problem re food! *g*

Barbara, we must be twins!!!

I would add mayonnaise and turnips. The joke in my family is that my kids are going to order a licorice, mayonnaise & turnip pizza for me. With cilantro, of course.

* Brabant Potatoes, recipe follows

Hey, where’s that potato recipe???

The chicken sounds fabulous.