TheSnackHound

Well, dear readers, the party’s over for me.  No matter how much glucosimine and antioxidants I pack my meals with, my legs aren’t getting any better. 

Recently, my brother came for a much anticipated visit, as we hadn’t seen eachother in two years!  He is in the physical therapy/sports medicine field so I thought he would be an authority to declare me “falling apart at the seams at a young age.”   What the root of the problem was not a dislocated hip from a car accident years ago like I thought, but an impacted hip brought about by sitting on my rear!  You heard it here first.  You can actually do more damage to yourself by NOT exercising.  Yes, I literally broke my butt! What’s the glory in having an interesting injury like that?  What tale would I tell? 

It wouldn’t be: “Oh, the limp’s nothing.  I got it running the Boston Marathon.  They told me not to enter that morning, as I had just saved a small town from a rabid bear the night before.  I got a medal for my injuries anyway.”  It would have to be:  “You see that mean hunk of Walnut?  That’s Old Dan, the meanest library chair this side of the Mason Dixon.    You see that hairline crack in the wood?  Old Dan is lucky after I had my tangle with him. I may limp, but normal people don’t get out of that alive”

The remedy he gave me was to - you guessed it - exercise. Daily eating habits are, of course, critical in this whole equation, but you can only eat yourself so thin and so healthy unless you actually get off your rear.   I started out with very light ankle weights the first couple weeks, and some simple stretches, but I am getting a bit bored with it and am moving on to the next level. 

Since I am a Apple-Cran-Grape Juice and Neopolitan ice cream indecisive kind of gal, I think XFLOWSION would be perfect for me to try.   It is not just martial arts, its not just yoga, and its not just a dance class…it is everything at the same time.    At first I thought it was for people like my mother-in-law who bakes a cake at twice the temperature in half the time because she doesn’t have the time to wait around.  On the contrary, it is not about cramming more of your day into as little time as possible.   The change in intensity and movement actually gets you beyond that “plateau.”     When you have gotten in better shape, but have hit a wall, it helps you break through and gain muscle town, or lose those last five pounds, depending on your goal.

Eric Paskel is not just an everyday gym guy.  He is an athlete, of course, but he also has a background in psychology, and really has worked out a system that keeps people motivated.   I may just be his biggest challenge, as my brain is always multi-tasking and on to the next thing while I am supposed to be doing something. 

Secretly, what motivates me to do it more is because Shape magazine called it the “Strangest Workout You’ll Ever Love.”  I don’t usually do what the magazines tell me to do, but if its “Strange?”  I’m in!  As you know from reading this blog, I am far from cookie cutter.

I am really excited to start as soon as I get the tapes. 

(At left “It’s Just Little Old Me” who baked this cake!)

Before my aunt and uncle**  were married, my uncle announced that he was going to bake her a cake for her birthday.  The family was pleasantly surpised that this young man thought so much of my aunt that he would do something very out of the ordinary and go so out of his way.   The birthday came, and he brought the cake to the party.  It was beautifully frosted.   It was hard to believe that the quality of the job came from a mere spatula!

My aunt began to cut the cake, and as she pressed the knife in, she remarked:

“Wow, this cake is so light!  Is it angel food?”

She cut all the way in and then the mystery was revealed!  It was a sponge cake.  Literally.  My uncle had frosted a large sponge as a joke.  Luckily, the whole family thought it was the best joke ever.  He also brought a real, edible cake that wasn’t as light and airy.  To this day, the family still talks about that cake from over 35 years ago. 

Do you have any good family “baking” stories like that?

(** Not the same uncle of the “chocolate chips in a cup” fame)

Many of my friends all volunteer for one cause or another, many in animal rescue, or in missionary work.  Often, they wish they could do more, but their employment and family responsibilities on top of it make it hard for them to do as much as they feel called to do.  I am in a unique situation, being a part time freelancer, but one of my friends is not.  She remarks often that she has too many volunteer commitments to find a new job!

The problem with finding a job that allows one to flex around volunteer work and family usually involves your rear end greatly expanding while you sit in a call center, your rear end greatly expanding as you stand around serving unhealthy food that you, of course, are tempted to eat because it is there in mass quantities. Those seem like the most popular options. 

I have long considered different job ideas for someone who needs to be mentally stimulate more than “mother’s hours” at the card shop.  I remember my mom saying that between getting us off to school, volunteering, and helping with homework, a true “mother’s hours” job would be from 1:30 P.M. to 2:37 P.M.  That is all she would be able to commit to.  I thought that was kind of funny.

Ever since my brother went to massage school to become a therapist, I thought about another flexible profession: Personal Trainer.  CareerBuilder.com recently highlighted fitness training as the #9 part-time job of 2008. Of course, you need a desire to help others and to get your fitness certification That would run you around $600. Don’t worry about not looking like a fitness model.  Most personal trainers have regular bodies, they just strive to make the best of what they were born with.   In fact, I think a client would be intimidated to walk in and see a Lady Wrestler or Mr. America standing there. People that have battled the bulge or worked through a car accident or post baby weight are people they can relate to.

The bonus, of course, is getting yourself into the best health that you can while you are on the job so you can be around for those helpless offspring creatures for many years to come.

I used to love getting the tableside “Caesar Salad” making service.   At some upscale restaurants, usually Bananas Foster is another dish that is made tableside.    You might not expect someone to come to your table and make drinks, however.

When we were kids, there were occasions that much of the whole family would go out to a restaurant.  It may be after a funeral, on the way home from the fair, or whatever the case may be.   Somehow, the parents allowed myself and a few of my cousins to sit at a table together against their better judgement.   We were not bad children (so we say).  We didn’t run around.  We were the kids who were more likely to be “a little too quiet.”   Inevitably, though, there would be culinary creations emanating from our table.  Yes, even at a Big Boy’s restaurant there was enough to work with.  All of those tantalizing caddies of additives and jellies awaited us.

My brother always ordered a glass of water with lemon, and then would confiscate the lemons from everyone else, not proud to ask at the “grown up” tables as well.  He would take the sugar packets lined in their little caddy, too.   With sugar granuals liberally littering the table, he squeezed and mixed his own lemonade.   Usually, it took half a glass of tasting to get the ratio of sugar, water, and squeezed lemon wedges just right.  He would then declare his creation a masterpiece and pedal his wares to the several tables our extended family took up.

Oddly enough, he got few special orders.

Here is how hand squeezed lemonade is supposed to go:

1 cup sugar (white.  No fancy schmancy stuff or your lemonade is going to be awfully crunchy)
6 lemons
6 cups of water
6 cups cold water

Squeeze the lemons, pour the juice in a pitcher, add the sugar, and stir in 6 cups of cold water.   If you really rather prefer your water temperature not be dictated to you, and you like warmed over lemonage, go for an alternative temperature.   If you think that is not enough sugar, just go to town, but it will surely be to your taste and not mine.

Actually, since the ratio is 6 to 1 seems to be the golden mean of lemonade,  maybe my brother was actually not so far off. If he combined all the lemon slices and it added up to one whole lemon, I could imagine he could dump enough of those sugar packets to make approximately 1/6 of a cup of sugar.

On the way home, we crashed in the car due to not only the ratio but the sheer volume of sugar that was consumed through a straw througout the evening, even though our breath and hands and sleeves smelled as refreshing as lemon scented Pledge. Our parents didn’t need car air fresheners. When you are doing this level of experimenting, you drink your mistakes.

On each side of our family, there is a holiday dessert tradition.   For Christmas, my Grandmother bakes the secret family cookie recipe, and the aunts each take turns bringing the pretzel jello.  Grandma only makes the cookies once a year, and the pretzel jello had a brief hiatus from about 1991 to 1996, during a period of time my sister had ongoing health issues, and therefore did not want to see jello ever again.     On my husband’s side, everyone decides somehow to bring a dessert, and then we end up with a person to dessert ratio of 2 to 1, but at least 1 to 1.  (A “dessert” constitutes an ENTIRE pie, cake, or entire packaged of profiteroles.) It always happens accidentally.

The first Thanksgiving that we spent at our new home, we were not able to spend the holiday with our family. All of my family, and my husband’s extended family lived in two different states and we couldn’t afford a trip having had a major relocation. We sent a photo of our holiday table to friends and family, and they did the same to sort of share the day with eachother.   We talked about what we ate over the phone and who came, and were all sort of bummed out at what we missed.    The grass is always greener.

This gave me an idea!    Instead of the typical Photo Christmas Cards this year with my husband, myself, and the dogs, the theme is going to be “Ha Ha, Guess what you’re not eating!”
I would take a photo of our table with my famous giant chocolate pudding cake on it for the card and say “Merry Christmas. Wish You Were Here. Darn, look what you missed!” I would put a piece with a big bite out of it where my brother would usually sit to show that I already took a bite out of his slice.   Maybe, I would use the types of cards which required multiple photos, so I could walk around the cake and show it from different angles.

Oh, this is perfect. Doodlebugsdezigns.com has cards where you can get the back printed up also like this:

Of course, instead of someone’s kids that we don’t know, I could write up a little narrative on the back of the card. It is not really as mean as you think.  He can take it!   It probably would inspire a quick missive from a few recipients who would send a card with a photo of an empty tin with just crumbs, as they ate all of Grandma’s cookies.

Of course, I would first send a card proclaiming Glory to the Newborn King.  That of course, would be my first priority, but being a sister, I have a secondary duty in this world to be a pain in the butt in a grand, and well calculated way. Having received the initial card, he won’t suspect a second.

Years back on the Food Network, I used to watch Door Knock Dinners.  Gordon Elliot ran into people on the streets or parkings lots of America and would offer to make dinner for their family with whatever they happened to have in the house at that moment.  It would be a bonus if they had a well stocked spice rack, but sometimes, even so, you wondered what he was going to do with a package of hit dogs, a freezer burnt piece of fish and Wonder Bread.

I miss that show!

Half the fun was him looking for people to cook for.  Half the people didn’t know the show and just thought he was a crazy person.  Nowadays, if the show ran, it would be the equievelant of people roaming through New York to look for the “Cash Cab.”   Folks would be driving around slow to try to find Gordon Elliot chasing after people in parking lots.

I did an internet search for Mr. Elliot, and in none of his bios does it mention the show.   Wonder if his credits are just so vast, or was he sort of embarrassed of the show?  Who knows.  The only evidence on the net of the existence of the show was a clip of an “Iron Chef” version of the show, which you can check out on Youtube.

Okay, aspiring Gordon Elliots out there, here are the contents of my cupboards, pre-grocery trip.  What would you make of it?

- A pretty well stocked spice rack.  That is a bonus.
- A few cans of soup that have been sitting there since my husband’s been on a low sodium diet (chicken noodle)
- Canned Salmon that an Aunt bought us.   Like tuna fish…but salmon.  We have just never touched it.
- Frozen ocean perch.  I love lake perch and miss it.  Ocean perch I guess tastes different.   My husband won’t touch it.
- A Tastefully Simple Garlic! Garlic! mix presumablty to make dip.
- Chocolate Soy Milk
- Horseradish
- Pretzel Chips
- Flour

If you were also a fan of the show, let me know what you would do, besides just opening up the can of soup and calling it a meal.

My dad and a friend of his always used to joke that they were going to retire and open up a Dairy Queen.  They thought it was the best business because you would be open just after Easter to before Halloween and you would have the other months off to kick back.   I don’t think it was really about business model, but more so that they both really liked ice cream.  My father is not a heavy nor particularly indulgent man, but an outing usually doesn’t end without an ice cream.   I was always Miss Boring Vanilla until I later discovered Peppermint Stick and Cookies N Cream.   Until then, I was a Vanilla girl probably for fifteen years running.

When I was in grade school, Charlie’s Shake Shop in Mukwonago, Wisconsin, was pretty legendary.   Charlie was actually named for a Charlene.  They had booths as well as the expected little tables and “ice cream shoppe chairs.”  They served every flavor of ice cream someone in second grade could have ever dreamed up, scratch n sniff stickers, and candy sticks.  In the back hall, there were a few arcade games.  I remember Pac man and Joust, and a pin ball machine.  I remember the jukebox, and the times we used to try to trick our siblings into smelling the old shoe or skunk scratch n sniff stickers.

Every year, the student who won the Listening Competition got to go their with the music teacher, where they were treated to the ultimate situation.  What was the Listening Competition?   We prepared for it all year.   We were heavily versed in music appreciation from the standard classical pieces, show tunes, to orchestra pops.   We were played a very short, short snippet of the record and had to identify it the quickest.  But the needle could go anywhere in the record.  Kind of like “Name that Tune” without Kathie Lee.  In otherwords, if you are the type of person to only remember snippets of bad 70s ballads because you have seen too many Time Life music commercials, we had the classical version in our heads.

There was a dish that was seldom ordered, but was heavily entrenched in the Clarendon Avenue Elementary School lore.  It was literally a bucket that contained a scoop of every single flavor Charlie’s Shake Shop served (and it could be plain or have any toppings you wanted).    The winner would get to go to Charlie’s and actually order anything they wanted on the menu, but that is what traditionally was ordered just because you could. No one ever finished it, unless they were lying.   You see, the selection put Baskin Robbins to shame.  If you were thinking about just 31 flavors, that would be the appetizer.  You were just starting to warm up at that point. They happily wrapped it up “to go” if you could make it back to your freezer in time.   In a small town, nobody lived to far, so one could actually make it.

Today, no one would dare serve something like that.  It would just be a major health issue waiting to happen, but you sure wouldn’t die of a calcium deficiency!    It could make any person lactose intolerant for life in twenty minutes.

A few years later, we moved away, and Charlie’s closed and became a bike shop.  Or did it used to be a bike shop before Charlie’s?  I can’t remember.   But the fact remains, is that Charlie’s became history, for a reason we don’t know as it always seemed busy.     Back then, which was not that long ago (the 80s), it was the only ice cream place at the time in town in a “one grocery store/one restaurant/one pharmacy” town.    Today, there are over 25 restaurants there.  I guess we would have been considered like “pioneers” compared to what it is today, except we wore jelly shoes and carried trapper keepers instead of carrying muskets.

Now, I am sure I will hear from someone else who remembers Charlie’s, as I found zero reference to it on the internet.  Well, now something about it is on the internet.

We live in a open concept style home, which means we have to make sure everything in the “uni-room” doesn’t clash. Some people call it a great room, but I like uni-room. The dining room, kitchen, living room, and front hall are all one open area.  From our old apartment, we had two valances. One had been from our kitchen, and one from the office. Now the valances are in the new house are about seven feet apart on different windows, and they don’t really go together. Also, our apartment was in fiestaware colors, and our new place is more formal in the color palatte of the counters and walls.   I almost forgot the double sliding door that is embarrassingly naked, and is about ten feet away from those windows.

I recently came across a suggestion that you use bed sheets to create window treatments. I tried this once, and ran into some problems. They looked like Strawberry Shortcake and kokopelli took scrubs from a children’s hospital nurse. Or, they looked like we stole them from our bed, plain and simple.  Sometimes bed sheets just look like bed sheets and are too theme-y.  

The answer for me may be in getting some custom valances so things don’t look so slapdash.  I like things that coordinate without being matchy matchy, but they can’t look like our home is a tent in the Sahara, thanks to our white bedding. 

This one reminds me of the furniture store I worked at a few years back. Similar items with butterscotch check mixed with the pattern was paired with a painted ceramic rooster and majolica spaniels.  It really pulled the fake room together.  There was a customer at that store that I really remember well.  She didn’t understand that “custom” meant you picked out the fabric from what they had, the fringe, and the style/dimensions.  It does NOT mean that you can choose from something that doesn’t exist at any fabric mill in the entire world, like 2×3 inch raspberry colored Indian elephants with a green polka dot background.  She didn’t want the beige fabric with the African elephants because that species have larger ears, and she wanted small eared elephants, because it looked too “safari”. I am not making this up.

Our friends at Priority Windows are having a sale right now, where you can get 10-20% off of your order depending on what you spend. There are five bajillion (translation: over 470) fabrics, so you should be able to find something.  You can create custom window treatments in the style and fabric you choose. 

If you are like me and want something that is luxe, but are flexible, they have semi-custom treatments.   You get fewer choices, but you end up with something that looks like it was hundreds of dollars!  I initially looked at the custom choices and I was multiplying the price by the number of windows in my head and it sounded pretty unobtainable.  When I flipped over to the semi-custom stuff, it is very doable instead of having to save up.

Do you have a “uni-room?” If so, what did you do with the window treatments? Did you get something custom for all the different sized windows? Is every window different? Or, did you strike gold with another idea?

We were in the grocery store last night and came across an Apple Pear.  In fact, we bought one, as it was amid the Fiji apples and I think we did so by accident.    From my previous post, The DillVinci Code, you know that if the code on the sticker is give digits and starts with an “8,” the fruit is a hybrid. This baby had the four digit code of conventional fruit, which really confounded us.

Apparently, there are Pear Apples that are hybrids, and there are Apple Pears.    Apple Pears apparently occur naturally and are not apples at all.   Rather, many varieties of pears from Asia do not have the bottom heavy shape that European pairs do.  Hence, they are apple shaped pears. I don’t know why they couldn’t have just been called something else. It is kind of like the same conundrum we had as kids when crayola had both orange-red and red-orange and yellow-orange as colors in their stable. It caused many, many misunderstandings when we asked eachother to pass us a crayon, because there is “the crayon you meant” versus the “crayon you mentioned.” Visually, you knew you rather have the red that had a tinge of orange in it, rather the orange that had a bit of red in it, but you could never keep them straight.

Most grocery stores would never have a Pear Apple and also have Apple Pears, so I can imagine being sent off to the store with a request for them, and someone being upset because they wanted an Apple Pear, and you were just supposed to leave it there if they only had Pear Apples. There would have been many moments of doubt, with you wondering if you had misheard them, or were being too literal.

Can you guess, in the photo above, which is the Pear Apple or the Apple Pear is?

Okay, you’ve twisted my arm.

In the middle, it is actually a variety of pear, even though the color would have made you think it may have some apple in there. At right is a gala apple. Plain and simple. No tricks there. The Apple Pear is actually the fruit at left. Would you have guessed it if I hadn’t told you?