After Christmas Weight Loss

Once again it’s time to take off a few pounds. Every year I give it a try with limited or no success. A couple of weeks of holiday eating can’t be wished off or prayed off even though a good attitude should help. I can’t blame Aunt Molly, as my mother did when she put on extra pounds. Aunt Molly was remembered for her spherical shape. Mother would groan and say, “I take after Aunt Molly.” Did she lose weight with this strategy? No. She spent less time looking into the mirror.

I turn to the books. After all, I spent a lot of my life as a librarian. When I worked in libraries, every January I made displays of diet books to enable everyone to eliminate excess holiday pounds. Maybe my co-workers noticed; I don’t know. I was doing something to help the world and maybe myself. Well, we all know that making displays is nice but it doesn’t bring about weight loss. It’s better to read them. It’s even better to do something.

I have noticed some recent weight loss trends such as intermittent fasting and the paleo diet. Goodbye Weight Watchers and the Atkins program. What became of calories? What happened to too much junk food? Low carb has morphed into low glycemic. The diets and weight loss programs all have books. Pick one and live better. Are we confused yet?

The latest weight loss wonder with book, The Daniel Plan, comes from megachurch pastor Rick Warren in collaboration with Dr. Mark Hyman and Dr. Daniel Amen. It has a different approach. Here is what Amazon.com says about it:  “Revolutionize Your Health ... Once and for All During an afternoon of baptizing over 800 people, Pastor Rick Warren realized it was time for change. He told his congregation he needed to lose weight and asked if anyone wanted to join him. He thought maybe 200 people would sign up, instead he witnessed a movement unfold as 15,000 people lost over 260,000 pounds in the first year. With assistance from medical and fitness experts, Pastor Rick and thousands of people began a journey to transform their lives. Welcome to The Daniel Plan. Here's the secret sauce: The Daniel Plan is designed to be done in a supportive community relying on God's instruction for living.”

I’m not sure how well this works. It deals with weight loss science from Dr. Hyman, the brain connection from Dr. Amen, and grouping from Rick Warren. These three guys have appeared on several television venues to promote their program and their book. They want groups of people to lose weight as Rick Warren has. The two doctors look slim enough already. I haven’t read the book.

Intermittent fasting is interesting. It works for some people. I have read about two types and blogged about one. They are said to be very good for health, as obesity reduction should be. One type, with book, The Mini-fast Diet, is the mini-fast, from weight loss doctor Julian Whitaker, and Peggy Dace. This program works by eliminating breakfast and thus bringing about a sixteen hour fast, with no food ingested from after supper through the morning. I tried it for two and a half weeks and gave up after seeing no results. In the book people said they lost pounds immediately. The other intermittent fast challenge is the fast diet from medical journalist Michael Mosley. The book is The Fast Diet, published in the United Kingdom. This program is supposed to work when the dieter eats 500 or 600 calories per day for two non-consecutive days of the week. The dieter does not go into starvation mode when he/she separates the days or does not eat 500-600 calories every day. The difference in calories is gender related: women 500, men 600. Both the Whitaker and Mosley programs promise weight loss and better health as long as the dieter doesn’t binge on the other days and stays to a diet that is low on the glycemic load.

Here we have three dieting possibilities for the next weight loss attempt. Would it work for Mother and Aunt Molly? Since they have gone to their rewards in the next life, we’ll never know. Will it work for me? Or you? We can check in on that next year at this time, maybe.

Swedish Rosettes

When it’s time to make Christmas cookies, it’s time to make rosettes. Rosettes are crispy delicate cookies made of batter and deep fried in shapes like the floral rosettes for which they are named, or stars, snowflakes or concentric circular shapes. They are beautiful and melt in your mouth. People who want rosettes mostly have to make them. People who want results without process are better off eating something else because the road to rosettedom is about process. You aren’t going to do this in five minutes. Dipping those little goodies in hot fat and waiting for them to turn into heaven takes time.

Is it possible to buy rosettes? I haven’t seen them in grocery stores, although at Christmastime I suspect that we can find them at Fosdal’s Bakery in Stoughton, Wisconsin, where the slogan is “here to make life a little sweeter.”

Rosette making is inexpensive and not difficult.  Rosettes are made from everyday ingredients and fried like doughnuts. They are made on an iron, which actually is aluminum. It would seem awkward to call a rosette iron an aluminum. Rosette irons can be bought in some stores or online from NordicWare or (you guessed it) Amazon.com.

Here is how I make them. Required equipment includes rosette iron and deep fryer. Take your time.

Swedish Rosettes                   (about 3 dozen)          

2 eggs                                                  1 cup whole milk

1 tablespoon sugar                             ¼ teaspoon vanilla extract

¼ teaspoon salt                                   oil for deep frying (I use canola oil)

1 cup all purpose flour                        powdered sugar

Have milk and eggs at room temperature. Beat eggs slightly in a small deep bowl. Blend in sugar and salt. Add flour and milk alternately; add vanilla. Mix until smooth. In your deep fryer heat oil to 375 degrees. Put the rosette iron into the hot fat. When it is well heated, remove it from the fat and immediately dip it into the batter. Do not let the batter run over the top of the iron or the rosette will stay stuck and not be removable. Immediately put the batter coated iron into the oil for at least 30 seconds or until the rosette is crisp and beginning to brown. Remove it from the oil and let it drip, then slip the rosette off the iron and drain it on absorbent paper such as paper toweling. Put the iron back into the oil for a few seconds before making the next rosette. Sprinkle the rosettes with powdered sugar.

Some things to know:

That iron isn’t ready to go right out of the new box. It must be seasoned first. I learned this the hard way rather than from my mother, who never made rosettes. If your iron is already seasoned, you may disregard this paragraph. To season it, coat the shaped frying part with oil and put it into the oven (in a dish) at an unspecified temperature (I don’t remember what temperature) and let it bake for a half hour or so. At this point the iron should be ready for rosette making. If you don’t season the iron, the batter will become stuck on the iron. The first rosette onto the iron might stick anyway, so don’t give up.

If rosettes drop from the iron after cooking, the fat is too hot. If they are soft when cooked, they have been cooked too quickly. If they have blisters, the eggs have been beaten too much.

My source says the rosettes will keep for about two weeks, but in my home they have never lasted that long so I make no guarantees. I keep them in a covered container until the wild hordes discover them and start to eat.

Wash the iron in water but do not use soap or dish detergent, or you will undo the seasoning.

It is ok to use cream or diluted evaporated milk in place of the fresh whole milk.

My source for this recipe is The Electric Company Christmas Cooky Book, which I acquired in about 1962 from The Wisconsin Electric Power Company in Milwaukee, the city where I lived for about a year with my new husband Rick. The booklet shows no author and no publication date.

Another source for rosettes is Swedish Food: 200 Selected Swedish Dishes, The Smorgasbord, Traditional Party and Everyday Menus, published in Gothenburg, Sweden, 10^th edition, undated. I got it from my mother, who was not Swedish but loved to cook during her life. Fortunately, the book is written in English.

A third source is a departure from the others. It is a recipe on the back of the package of an angel rosette iron piece that I got from one of my daughters. It suggests use of beer in place of milk. I haven’t tried that. Also, it suggests that you purchase ready made rosette batter. I don’t stand behind that suggestion and have never actually seen any.

Thanksgiving and Excess

Next week we will celebrate the day when we fill our stomachs with our national bird, fill our heads with televised football, and now have more opportunities to fill our shopping bags with stuff. Some people might give thanks, but I suspect many won’t. It’s a day off for turkey, football and shopping.

Why will more stores be open on Thanksgiving Day? In my opinion, the answer is because a lot of people will go shopping, in person or online. Black Friday is becoming Black Thursday. I will be glad to be with my family even though one of my daughters will have to leave the festivities and go to work.

In this time of contrasts of plenteousness and less than enough for many, I am struck with the messages I receive from our culture. Not just turkey, football and shopping, but messages that we can have more. This comes home to me when I watch HGTV on television. I started to watch this channel after I bought my house in May. It gave me some ideas about how to make my small old house more up to date and beautiful even though I loved it already.

That’s the HGTV message. Whatever you live in, you can make it better. And what makes it better is renovating or buying your home. In this land of plenty, we can tear down some walls, put in new fireplaces and appliances, install lovely hardwood floors, or just buy them somewhere else. I am amazed at the purchase prices of some of the homes I see on this channel. I also am amazed at the sense of entitlement that is projected by the people who buy or renovate. They don’t settle for Adequate, they want the Newest. They complain about kitchens and bathrooms being outdated. They insist on open concept designs. They hate basement laundry rooms. They want million dollar ocean views. They might be thinking they can be Donald Trump and that it is okay to live like the Donald.

The land of promise is becoming the land of excess, at least for some people, but not for all. The other side of HGTV (not within HGTV’s scope) is inability to buy homes by people who struggle to make a living, not just beautiful homes but any homes. Does a low income person care about hardwood floors and trendy bathrooms? I think that person might be glad just to live somewhere.

I bought my new draperies from JC Penney and new living room carpet from Sergenians, but I did it because they were replacing old, worn draperies and carpeting. I bought them on days other than Thanksgiving. The old carpet and curtains were dated and damaged. That is different from spending excessive amounts of money on items that go far beyond adequacy or need. Yes, people can have a standard of living that does more than fill a need, but I see plenty of opportunities to curb some of the excess.

God has rained many blessings on us. So has the capitalist system. Thanksgiving Day might be improved by thanking God for our blessings and curbing the allure of the economic system for one day. I like HGTV as entertainment and suggestions for home improvement, but I am not enthralled about the underlying message.

Okay, folks. Let’s go to the store when we must. But let’s not do it on Thanksgiving Day. We can hold it at turkey and football.

Pumpkin Pie - the Best

It’s the season for pumpkin. Store bought pumpkin pie tastes like straw compared to this, at least for people who like spices in their pie. I made it for the family many times. Easy to make. The hardest part (not very hard) is getting the unbaked pie into the oven without spilling the filling.

Pumpkin Pie

1 ½ cups cooked or canned pumpkin

¾ cup sugar

½ teaspoon salt

½ to 1 teaspoon ginger (I use 1 teaspoon)

1 to 1 ¼ teaspoon cinnamon (I use 1 ¼ teaspoon)

¼ to ½ teaspoon nutmeg (I use ½ teaspoon)

¼  to 1 teaspoon cloves (I use ¼ teaspoon)

3 slightly beaten eggs

1 ¼ cups milk

¾ cup evaporated milk (not sweetened condensed milk)

Pastry for 1 9-inch pie pan (bottom crust only)

Make your pie crust or buy one. I don’t stand behind purchased pie crust, but it seems to suit some people. Don’t bake it until the filling is in it.

Thoroughly combine pumpkin, sugar, salt and spices. Add eggs, milk and evaporated milk. Blend.

Pour it into your 9-inch pastry lined pie pan. Bake at 450 degrees ten minutes, then at 325 degrees for about 45 minutes, or until the mixture doesn’t adhere to a knife.

This recipe is in one of my old cookbooks, the old one that has lost its title page and has many pages coming apart. It’s the best. It is Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook, 1953 loose leaf edition. I revised some of the wording but not the ingredient descriptions.

Mini-Fast Diet Book

If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is, according to the old saying. Well, maybe so, maybe no. That’s my conclusion after reading The Mini-Fast Diet: Burn Fat Faster than Ever With the Simple Science of Intermittent Fasting, by Julian Whitaker and Peggy Dace. Testimonials abound in the book, but it hasn’t done a thing for me.

Intermittent fasting has gotten significant press lately. The book was published in 2012, and the dust jacket proclaims: “Lose up to 30 pounds in 12 Weeks!...Burn Fat faster than ever …”  Dr. Joseph Mercola, who has a widely read website with health articles, has said that he tried intermittent fasting successfully. Headlines of some of his articles state: “Burn Away Fat Cells With This Simple Eating Trick” (May 4, 2012); “Intermittent Fasting Finally Becoming Mainstream Health Recommendation” (January 18, 2013); “Intermittent Fasting Shown to Improve Diabetes and Reduce Cardiovascular Risk” (May 17, 2013); “How Intermittent Fasting Stacks Up Among Obesity-Related Myths, Assumptions, and Evidence-Backed Facts” (March 1, 2013).

Julian Whitaker, who has written fourteen books, is a physician who operates a weight loss clinic using diet, exercise and some nutritional supplements, in California.  He refers to his program as a mini-fast with exercise. The mini-fast is about sixteen hours, preferably during the night when one is sleeping and continuing the next day until about noon. No breakfast. His program includes some sweat producing exercise during the fast, to be spaced a couple of hours before eating.  Whitaker says in the book that he tried this procedure himself and saw results right away. He says he was not hungry and liked not having to worry about counting calories. That’s right. His diet is a non-diet diet.  He says in the book’s introduction that this diet is “the most successful, health-enhancing, and fastest-acting weight loss program I’ve ever come across. It eliminates the restrictive diets, calorie counting, and food cravings that are the bane of most regimens. It promotes habits that will lead to a lifetime of health. And it…selectively burns fat.”

According to the book, Whitaker’s program allows the dieter to eat a normally healthy diet and stresses the importance of exercise while fasting. He allows people who don’t want to fast during the night to fast for sixteen hours during other times of the day as long as they are eating only two meals during the twenty-four hour period and spaced within about eight hours. He says that the fasting time puts the dieter in a state of ketosis, which is a fat burning state that occurs with the fast. Some of us know about ketosis  as the basis of the Atkins diet, which comes about by severely reducing carbohydrate intake. In Whitaker’s program, the dieter is encouraged to break the fast with some protein rather than high glycemic carbohydrates. Whitaker encourages people to eat a healthy diet. However, he is no Robert Atkins.

Ok, it sounded too good to be true to me, even with Whitaker’s many patients who tout their successful weight loss. So, I tried it. I have been going without breakfast for two and a half weeks. Unlike Dr. Whitaker and Dr. Mercola, who said they lost weight in days, I haven’t lost a pound. It is possible that I may be enjoying some of the other benefits that are enumerated in the book, but I don’t have the equipment to do medical tests. I feel the same as always. I don’t miss breakfast, but I haven’t been hungry in the morning for many years.

The book has many good parts. It is assembled with headlines throughout the text, before and after pictures with dieter testimonials, and boxed sections here and there about related topics that don’t interrupt the basic text. These features give us a book that is easy to read and good to look at. The book is organized into three useful parts: The Problem and the Solution; The Mini-Fast With Exercise Program; and Exercise and Diet Strategies.

Whitaker tells us why diets normally fail and that it isn’t the person’s fault if they do. He explains diet failures in laypeople’s language while using science that is documented in footnotes. He has a chapter about why weight loss matters, with science that is pointed enough to make a normal person want to lose weight as a health issue. He writes about some roadblocks to success, such as being hypothyroid or having other medical problems. He provides menus and some recipes for people who would like to use them. His thyroid solution strikes me as too simple; get the situation treated and you will be fine. I can say from experience that it isn’t a simple situation. It occurs to me that the dieter needs to do a lot of exercise, or maybe the diet works better for men than for post-menopausal women.

Whitaker presents one type of intermittent fasting. Another that is being discussed around the water coolers  is a diet requiring the person to choose some days in which to eat a maximum of five hundred calories, while eating normally the rest of the week. This type of fast is explained in another book that I haven’t read, called The Fast Diet, by Michael Mosley.

I think Dr. Whitaker’s book has many merits. Is it too good to be true? Maybe and maybe not.

Banana Bread

Banana Bread

My daughter Mary actually had to go to a cookbook to produce banana bread. How could I have neglected her culinary education so flagrantly? She let the cat out of the bag recently on her blog, Mary’s FoodJournal.  To make amends, I am giving Mary and the world the best banana bread our family has ever eaten, or at least never complained about. I made it for the family many times and they all are well and wonderful, including Rick, who presumably is in heaven still enjoying the memories.

Here is glorious banana bread, a simple bread from the Boston Cooking-School Cook Book, by Fannie Merritt Farmer, 8^th ed., 1948, completely revised by Wilma Lord Perkins, page 76. Applause may begin now.

Banana Bread

3 very ripe bananas                         2 cups all purpose flour

¾ cup sugar                                    1 teaspoon salt

2 eggs                                             1 teaspoon baking soda

                                1 cup chopped nutmeats (optional)

Crush bananas with fork. Add eggs, beaten light. Lightly mix flour, salt and soda, and add to banana mixture. Add optional nuts. Put into loaf pan. Bake 1 hour at 325 degrees. Makes one loaf, 5x9 inches.

I revised the cookbook’s words slightly. Also, I am not opposed to my daughter using a cookbook, but I still believe that I could have shared this version of banana bread with her before today. She is an excellent cook.

The Goodness of Summer

Summer is good. It begins with promise and concludes with the next stage of fall. The tulips have disappeared and the tomatoes are ripe. Last summer was hot and dry while this summer is cool and pleasant. That’s the story of the marvels of the natural world of summer. We have had no sinkholes, no washout floods, and no tornadoes this summer.

Summers have brought changes into my life. This summer I have been settling into my new house after leaving the condo where I lived for ten years. It is the first time in my life when I moved alone. When I bought the house in March, a foot of snow was on the ground. When I moved into it during the Memorial Day weekend two months later, the grass was green, spring flowers were blooming, and children were running through the neighborhood. Very good.

On the first day in my new home it dawned on me that most of the rooms do not have ceiling lights. I had a few lamps and quickly bought more. One bedroom continues to be lit by an artist’s clamp light attached to a bookcase. Other events at home included new draperies and curtains, the flooded basement (due to rain) that kept carpet wet for a month, repairs to the leak in the kitchen sink, and new carpet for the living room and hall. I am sure that more is to come. Old houses are not perfect.

Other summers have produced changes. Here is one. My parents had a cottage at Clark’s Lake in the woods of Door County while my brothers and I were growing up. We lived in it all summer in 1951 instead of spending time there and at our year round home. We were beginning a new adventure. We moved to Sturgeon Bay and my father started a new radio station. The cottage was home until the parents found a house to live in when September came. For me it was a good summer of swimming in the lake, walking in the woods, swatting mosquitoes and living in a cottage without plumbing. That summer my life changed as I enrolled in a new school in a smaller community than the one we left in suburban Chicago, and I made new friends. More happened after that, but it wasn’t summer any more.

Another memorable summer with change was my wedding and new life with Rick. My mother and I spent the month of June preparing for the wedding, then the big day came, and after it was over, Rick and I went off to Milwaukee to live after a honeymoon in New Orleans. Our small apartment in Milwaukee was near a park. I went to the park often because we had no yard, and I pushed the neighborhood kids on the swings. This new married life was the biggest change of my life so far. My maternal grandmother and her sister were living in Milwaukee at that time, which was a plus. I have always loved my family.  It was a good but different kind of summer that ended with my resuming my education at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

I enjoy scavenging berries and apples each summer. Last summer’s drought diminished the harvest considerably. This year I found few raspberries and blackberries, and the apple harvest is just beginning. I have gone to Washington Island twice this summer and had a trip to Savannah, Georgia, at about moving time. I planted bushes, flowers, tomatoes and zucchini in my small yard. The neighbors are friendly. The yard has been populated by young rabbits, squirrels and chipmunks. Summer is good.