Facets of Our Lives

This week's recipes aren't the healthiest, but I've done my best with them. Croissant dough is available in your refrigerator case in both name brand and store brand varieties, called by the more English sounding "Crescent Rolls". In fairness, these versions, while tasty, are nothing like their French counterparts: definitely more doughy, less flaky, less buttery. However, working with this dough is very easy, and lends itself well to various recipes. I've used the dough to make pockets full of chicken and vegetables, sweet breakfast treats, and of course, dinner rolls. The real problem with the dough are the fat and calories. Even if you buy the reduced fat version, they are 100 calories per crescent, and they're small . So if you're planning to use any kind of filling, you've got to be mindful of what you're using or you could end up with a very high-calorie, high-fat snack. Needless to say, for today's recipes, I have used the r...

Happy Labor Day Weekend! I figure since I have slowed down on my posting, I will go ahead and work this Labor Day and give you some recipes. "Americans love their mayo," a friend said to me when we were discussing baguette sandwiches I had enjoyed in Paris. The French do not use mayonnaise, but rather butter or margarine. Interestingly, I saw a program on the Food Network this weekend describing sandwiches that have both . The Dutch (and the Flemish of Belgium) use mayo with their famous french fries, and purchasing patat or frites , you select which fritesaus you'd prefer -- from a specific type of sweet mayo, to a peanut sauce, to a curry mayonnaise, to other local, delicious and diverse options. Ok, so why am I discussing this? Well, I visited my mother last week, and thanks to changes in her diet, she has little use for mayonnaise at the moment. To add further to her disinterest in the product, she purchased a low-fat or non-fat version of mayonnaise, which ...

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I have been listening to interviews and reading articles about budget crisis. There is a lot of finger-pointing, but essentially, both parties are to blame if you look at the whole situation historically, especially over the last 30 years. So here's my analysis and thoughts on the whole thing. It is a foregone conclusion that the entire system of politics is broken. We are not governed by leaders but by financial interests on both sides of the aisle. Forget the so-called "hard" decisions, people can't or won't make the human decisions because humanity is out of the equation. First, the playing field is not level. Jobs are exported because the labor laws in other countries are weaker and salaries are cheaper. That's it. It's not rocket science. The answer is not dropping taxes in the US, because that just means these corporations pay less money here, not that they create more jobs. Why would they? If you can hire 10 Chinese for the cost of one Americ...

I mentioned in my last foodie post that I was going to avoid recipes that included dairy, so I thought I would go ahead and explain my reasoning. The agricultural industry, particularly in the United States, is broken. Thanks to political intervention, nutritionally questionable foods are significantly cheaper than foods that are just as easy or difficult to grow. There have been numerous articles published in recent years comparing the population to the walking dead and the diminishing quality of our food supply. While medical science has improved to extend our lives, we are seeing higher rates of preventable conditions because our priorities are so out of whack. Now, as for dairy, I'm not saying there is anything wrong with milk or cheese, however, despite the USDA pronouncements, dairy is NOT a necessary food group. Humans are the only species that drink milk from another animal, and the cow is not even a close relative. Dairy was included because dairy producers participate...

Given the current state of our economy and that the debt ceiling debate has dominated our news for the last week, I am doing my political post a day early and leaving food for Tuesday. But I am not actually going to talk about the "crisis". I am going to talk about how we got here. We can blame party politics, we can blame the patterns in place for the last 30 years of US governance, we can blame the Tea Party. But the blame really rests with ourselves. The table below compares the elections of 2008 and 2010. 1 2008 2010 Total Number of Voters 130 million 82.5 million Liberal 22% (28.6 million) 20% (16.5 million) Moderate 44% (57.2 million) 39% (32.175 million) Conservative 34% (44.2 million) 41% (33.825 million) Ages 18-29 18% (23.4 million) 11% (9.075 million) Ages 65 or older 16% (20.8 million) 23% (18.975 million) White 74% (96....

I'm 38, I have to rush at this point! I mean, really, I'm playing 'beat the clock' nowadays. :/ Rushing is not necessary. I promise you will have the same ability to get pregnant after 40 that you do now. :-) This was a recent exchange I had with a friend on Facebook. A discussion took place later with a different group of friends regarding ageism. The issue has many facets. First, you have the conversation with my friend above. Despite all of the press about "40 is the new 30" and so forth, people living longer and somewhat healthier lives, and the trend toward establishing stability in one's life before marriage, the belief persists that if you reach 40 and you're not married or otherwise partnered, you're somehow doomed. There is the further psychological implication that you are somehow defective and undesirable for being unable to close the permanent deal by 40. Women are worried about their biological clocks, which is certainly releva...