I don't know if this is true and don't think the connection is there. There are still hand sanitizer (or "handitizer," as my children insist it's supposed to be pronounced) dispensers all over the place. Maybe there's an element of Flu Fatigue or something, but I don't know. I think the germophobes are still winning.
The germophobes are definitely winning. I fight it by deliberately touching dirty things. I believe it gives my immune system a workout, which is why I rarely get sick. This is probably irrational, but I grew up literally eating dirt, so maybe I'm just nuts.
I think using a paper towel to touch the door handle is one of the more logical germophobic acts. Often those handles are actually wet. Or your hands are still wet from the sink.
More logical than any of the random consumer products that are now "antimicrobial".
I keep raw chicken in the ice maker because germs aren't something to be afraid of.
I sometimes do this. But I also act with reckless disregard for my health by not sanitizing the grocery cart handle.
There are still hand sanitizer (or "handitizer," as my children insist it's supposed to be pronounced) dispensers all over the place.
I think these sprung up especially during Swine Flu Panic! Things don't get taken down once they're installed, but I wonder if they're used a little less.
I haven't noticed a big change in men trying not to touch the restroom door handle. More men seem to actually wash their hands, or at least go through the motions instead of urinating and just leaving.
Today's neurotic trend: refreshing Facebook or webpages on one's phone every waking minute.
I still see people using paper towels on bathroom doors all the time. BUT I will note that the last few winters the "wellness" folks at my workplace have issued helpful tips about how to avoid nasty germs, and this winter I'm pretty sure they didn't, so I believe we have a trend.
7: I hope they are still using them in the hospitals.
More men seem to actually wash their hands, or at least go through the motions instead of urinating and just leaving.
Genocide is too good for them, I swear.
They'd probably wash their hands after that.
I do the paper towel thing sometimes. I recognize it is irrational but yeah.
I don't do the paper towel thing, but I find it tempting, especially since they put towlette dispensers right next to the bathroom doors in my office building.
I do open bathroom doors with minimal contact with the handle.
7: I feel like I see a lot of them that are no longer refilled.
If you don't flush, you don't need to wash your hands.
I don't think there's much of a decrease in generalised germophobia - as others have noted, you still see sanitisers (and people using them) where you wouldn't have 10 years ago. And I have a couple of highly germophobic friends and colleagues who haven't changed. But presumably the absurd Ebola/Swine Flu/Bird Flu related paranoia has waned a bit.
When I worked at a medical school there were "Wash your hands!" posters all over the place. Probably a good thing.
As far as neurotic trends go, maybe someone should try to establish a new one. Obsessively re-tying your shoes? Going back to your house to make sure you didn't leave an appliance on? Endless possibilities.
Signing on to 12. Not signing on to 8.last. Restrooms that have a door handle for the foot are the best.
Restrooms that have a door handle for the foot are the best.
That's a catflap and it's somebody's kitchen, you monster.
12, 22: In favor of leaving without washing hands.
Do cats not drink much fluid? I see the little clumps on the kitty litter commercials and I wonder that maybe the cat isn't drinking enough.
Right after my friend gave birth, I had to help her use the hospital toilet, which was a public squat toilet sort of situation. There was cold water and hand sanitizer, but no soap. My friend didn't wash her hands, and I asked her if she wanted to use the sanitizer. She said no, because she was worried about getting sanitizer on her baby's skin.
But anyways, not much germophobia happening in the Middle Kingdom. Eating ice cubes on the other hand...
26: the absence of sufficient quantities of soap and toilet paper were the two things I found most disorienting there.
I've never been there, but I'd think that the most disorienting things I'd find there would be that I couldn't understand what people were saying and that I couldn't read what the signs said.
I used to have a coworker who was from China. He would never ever dry his hands after using the bathroom. I know this because the bathroom had a key, we were the only two men in our office to use that key, and the key was always wet.
To be fair, he also lived in Ohio. He may have picked up his habits there.
In the fall he'd bring us all moon cakes, which was very nice but not as nice as bringing us all moon pies.
I wipe the grocery cart handle mainly 'cause the wipes are right there next to the carts and flu is not fun. I use hand sanitizer after visiting the animal shelter with the notion that I won't be bringing something nasty home to my cats.
I haven't noticed much difference in rates over the last few years. The habits have been established or not, and the media has moved on past "The Great Ebola Panic" to "Fetus Shoots Mom by Kicking Purse" or other crap.
I think Whole Foods has wipes by the carts, but the regular grocery stores don't have them there. I don't know what the animal shelter has.
I'm no longer the grocery shopper in the family, I think because of my inability to not buy cheese curls.
As far as neurotic trends go, maybe someone should try to establish a new one.
Cry, cry, masturbate, cry, cry, cry, masturbate, cry, cry, cry, masturbate, cry, cry, cry, masturbate, cry, cry, cry, masturbate, cry, cry, cry, masturbate, cry, cry, cry, masturbate, cry, cry, cry, masturbate, cry . . .
Maybe cry, cry, masturbate, wash hands, cry, cry...
I think these sprung up especially during Swine Flu Panic!
When was that one? There have been so many animal flu panics that I've sort of lost track.
At least in UK hospitals there are hand sanitiser dispensers about every ten metres of wall, usually with a poster picturing somebody in some kind of health worker's uniform with a bright little slogan like "I can use this stuff, you can too." I don't see that going away any time soon. But actual germophobia in the general population doesn't seem to be any more prevalent than at any time in the last 50 years. I suspect it's just that the germophobes have got more shouty. On the other hand ignorant, stupid adverts for disinfectants on TV probably breed cynicism about the issue.
3 makes sense. Some germs you want, some germs you don't. The stuff that you might get on your hands during cold/flu season can actually give you colds and flu. Eating dirt, on the other hand, is almost certainly good for you.
29
No, this is a Chinese thing and actually worse than the no soap. People don't have or use hand towels, either in the bathroom or kitchen. (Actually, people usually have about 10 wet hand towels in varying states of cleanliness hanging around their bathroom, but I don't like to touch wet, non-clean towels in other people's bathrooms.) Maybe it annoys me more because I wash my hands way more than anyone else I know here.
My favorite soap story was another friend's father, who did have soap, except he kept it inside a dirty black nylon sock. If you used it, it would make your hands smell like dirty sock and leave a black residue behind.
Another good soap story is a friend in her late 20s, who complains that her husband uses dish detergent when he washes the dishes. I asked her what she uses. She uses corn starch, to soak up the oil. She says that when they have kids, she'll take over dish washing duty, because she doesn't want her kids exposed to dish detergent.
Eating dirt, on the other hand, is almost certainly good for you.
But only if it's organic dirt.
Swine Flu is easy for me to date - I got it, lost a bunch of weight, got married at my pre-baby weight, and then gained it all back on.
I got it in September '09, but it had been going on since the previous spring. That spring, the president didn't shake hands with the graduates during graduation.
If we're going to be snarky about germaphobia, it seems to me that public restrooms, where fecal-oral transmission is a rational concern, are a weak example to choose. Using the paper towel on the door handle seems reasonable to me to preserve the benefits of having bothered to wash one's hands, but I don't know, maybe it doesn't do shit. I've always refused to use toilet seat covers on the grounds that they're not going to stop anything that's worth worrying about. That's probably wrong too.
But actual germophobia in the general population doesn't seem to be any more prevalent than at any time in the last 50 years. I suspect it's just that the germophobes have got more shouty.
It depends how you define general population. Lots of public places (not just hospitals, but offices, shops etc) have prominently displayed sanitisers everywhere, and you see lots of posters with sneezing people etc.
If you don't flush, you don't need to wash your hands arse.
FTFY.
37: Cedars-Sinai here has hand sanitizer stations and individual bottles of the stuff along with screen savers and huge posters everywhere reminding staff and visitors about infection control.
42: I once got a rash on my legs after not covering the seat on a toilet. But this was at the apartment of a French host family and the toilet was in its own room, sans sink. The rash disappeared soon after I started covering the seat consistently, so I'm pretty sure that was the issue.
And then I found five francs but they were kind of gross so I didn't pick them up.
I've always refused to use toilet seat covers on the grounds that they're not going to stop anything that's worth worrying about.
If it helps, you have the authority of Penn and Teller backing you up on this (it was addressed in one of the few episodes of their show that I watched).
Off topic (since we're past comment 40), I read this somewhat silly poem last week and it's stuck with me for some reason. Favorite line:
"A woman came up to me in the hospital and said "this is your baby," and I took the baby, but she said, "I can tell already you're a terrible mother," and threw the baby blankets at my husband and stomped off."
Buttercup, the soap stories are amazing. Not utterly unlike stories from my mother's public health nursing classes (from the 1960s, so covering US beliefs decades older than that). There was something about soap removing the natural protective coating of the skin.
OTOH, I much prefer to open a public bathroom door with a towel. The microbial balance in actual dirt is a lot less human-speciaiized.
37: They're also very common in USAian hospitals. In the ones I've been to recently, each room would have a dedicated hand sanitizer dispenser. I haven't picked up the habit of using them outside the hospital setting, though. Maybe if they were a bit more common.
As for men's restrooms habits, in my observation (n=30ish) most men (>80%) wash their hands but very few (n=1) do the paper towel on the door thing. Now if we could only convince whomever is doing it that paper towels don't go in the urinals.
I'd think that the most disorienting things I'd find there would be that I couldn't understand what people were saying and that I couldn't read what the signs said.
Traveling in Greece and Turkey was kind of weird in this regard. In Greece, for the first few days I couldn't read any signs because I wasn't up to speed with the alphabet; once the switch flipped I was like "oh wait! I understand what that says!" Then we got to Turkey and I could sound everything out but I had no idea what it actually meant.
Are public toilets in Greece still marked "0-0" and "0-0-0"? They were in the 60s; one was M and one was F. but..?
||
Anyone else signing up for the NY 5 Boro bike tour?
|>
Yeah, I think the language-disconnect thing was bigger for me in Hungary than in Korea or China because the use of the same alphabet gave me a false sense of hope.
51: Bangkok was like that. I couldn't even make up words to go with the apparently random squiggles on the street signs.
o-o-o. o-o-o.
52: I don't remember. My main memory of public restrooms is the (somewhat belated) discovery of what you were supposed to do with used toilet paper.
The SwineFit plan.
Maybe I should start touching more door handles. Ive tried the Divorce diet. Im not interested in the Meth diet. Watching how much I eat seems too difficult.
When I traveled in Greece, I hadn't yet done any statistics so I didn't know the alphabet.
Lesson one for travelling in Greece: if you know any ancient Greek, it's no help at all. Least of all the alphabet: about half the letters are pronounced entirely different.
60: No, lesson one is "used toilet paper doesn't go in the toilet".
I remember when I figured out "it's S ... SO...SOU...SOUVLAKI!"
You put used toilet paper in the souvlaki?
Everybody knows to put the used toilet paper in the bidet.
Germophobe here. Still using paper towels on bathroom doors, still wiping down shopping carts handlebars. In my defense, I'm not worried about obscure germs or deadly flu, just your everyday garden variety cold, which I typically catch about every six to eight weeks or so.
Ironically, I am also doing one of those crazy "restore your microbes" diets and I haven't caught a real cold since I started, which was in August. So maybe I can stop being paranoid as long as I keep eating sauerkraut? I'm not quite ready to run the experiment, but it's an interesting connection.
Several of the buildings in my neighborhood are adorned with Greek letters. Just last night, the inhabitants of these houses were celebrating quite loudly the discovery of their new friends, whom they had found among a broader group of people aspiring to join their friend clubs.
62: For me it was "oh hey ICTHYOS. It's a seafood restaurant!"
The powers that be seem to have succeeded in teaching people to sneeze into the crook of their elbows. I don't ever recall having heard of this idea before the '00s, but, in conjunction with one flu panic or another, Ed Rendell told everyone to do it, and somehow it's stuck. Both of my kids do it without thought, as do I.
Maybe we can get Ed Rendell to say something about free range kids.
Has anyone else ever worked at a workplace that forbids / discourages shaking hands? I've experienced that with some healthcare organizations. As an infection control measure, it's hard to fault. But it sure does make for some awkward etiquette situations until you get used to it.
Also, I agree with 3.
"restore your microbes" diets
Tell us more.
I've only heard of not shaking hands at work in the context of Orthodox Judaism. But, where there is a flu bug about, the priest at my parents' church says to make a sign of peace that doesn't involve shaking hands.
"oh hey ICTHYOS. It's a seafood restaurant!"
Pronounced PES-key.
73.2: Communion under both species during flu season is either foolish risk or a sign of faith in God's mercy.
It's not that dangerous. No Methodists are allowed.
Re: 72
It's the auto-immune protocol diet. Cutting-and-pasting from the cult leader: "By removing the foods that contribute to a leaky gut, gut dysbiosis (the wrong numbers, relative quantities, or types of microorganisms typically growing in the wrong locations in your gut), hormone imbalance, and that stimulate inflammation and the immune system, you can create the opportunity for your body to heal. By addressing important lifestyle factors and changing your focus to eating nutrient-dense foods that support optimal gut health (and optimal health of your gut microorganisms), that restore levels of important nutrients and provide all of the building blocks that your body needs to heal and properly regulate the immune system, that help resolve inflammation and support organ function, you create an environment in your body conducive to healing."
I was extremely skeptical, to say the least. It sounds ridiculous to me. But I let myself get talked into trying it for 30 days and have mostly stuck with it ever since. Basically, you eat sauerkraut and drink kombucha daily, and then eat mostly leafy greens, root vegetables, and animal protein. It's not for everyone -- I'm still sort of amazed that I'm sticking to it, or that it's even possible to stick to it. But I've never felt this healthy before. And when I ditch the diet for a few days (aka Thanksgiving, Christmas), I spend a week back to "normal" -- my old normal, which was exhausted, congested, with aching joints and no energy. For me, that was such a familiar state that I thought nothing of it. Discovering that actually it isn't normal and that it is in fact possible to, for example, work, go to yoga, run errands, and then still feel like cooking dinner that night was revelatory. So, yeah, microbes. I'm trying to keep mine happier. :)
None of us have even talked about the second half of the post and I don't think I want to. You have four little children, heebie. How could you possibly be organized enough to have life entirely under control? I don't think I'm a unique failure in that respect!
77: Sounds safer than methotrexate.
78: I believe that Trapper Keepers were mentioned a few posts ago. Clearly, Heebie will reach the hoped for plateau of organization when she acquires a Trapper Keeper.
52: How weird. If they are, I've never noticed.
Lesson one for travelling in Greece: if you know any ancient Greek, it's no help at all
Not at all true in my experience. I muddled my way through the first several weeks of unexpected immersion by using a combination of ancient Greek and a few rules of thumb about the major sound changes. I sounded like an idiot, but it was far better than pointing and repeating the same thing over and over in English.
I'm personally convinced that, at least in most areas in Greece, the no-flushing-TP rule is just rank superstition, like the widespread belief that driving with your headlights on ruins your battery and should only be done when absolutely necessary.
79: I'm going to pretend you didn't say that, 'cause I've been on that for ages and I don't want to hear that it's gonna fuck me up somehow.
I just think sauerkraut is very well tolerated.
So, yeah, microbes
Interesting, thanks. What's interesting is that that's mostly a paleo diet as well, so I wonder if it's giving up grains that's making you feel good (it certainly makes me feel better) or if there's something to the kombucha and sauerkraut.
You married a German that hates kraut?
You can turn cabbage into sauerkraut by setting a cabbage next to a pickle and letting the germs jump over.
'Leaky gut' stuff is at this point is mostly quacks selling snake oil (or whatever), as is a lot of the 'pro-biotic' stuff that gets sold. That said as far as diets go that one sounds pretty healthy which could be a lot of it.* It depends on what your diet before was like though. It could be a problem with grains (though I'm suspicious of the anti-gluten fad too), or just a general benefit to eating better. And even a small benefit is likely to have beneficial feedback mechanisms (more energy -> more exercise -> more energy ->more energy to cook healthy food -> more energy -> etc.).
*Sauerkraut itself is almost obscenely healthy, though mostly for reasons unrelated to the live cultures in it when you eat. The fermentation process in general tends to add serious nutritional value to vegetables. I find this amazing because it doesn't taste remotely virtuous-health-food-y to me. Kombucha doesn't have any established health benefits to my knowledge though.
And you don't need starter for sauerkraut - those bacteria are pretty much everywhere and all you need to do is give them the environment they can handle and other things can't. Sauerkraut (and most pickles really) is stupidly easy to make: shred cabbage, add salt, and set somewhere a bit cool where it won't be disturbed for a few weeks.
I'm still waiting for the all-kimchi diet, I think. (Okay, I could easily handle the eat-a-lot-of-fish and avocado parts of this one, not to mention fresh fruits and vegetables.)
Sauerkraut itself is almost obscenely healthy, though mostly for reasons unrelated to the live cultures in it when you eat.
Does this include the stuff in plastic bags next to the hot dogs in the grocery store, or does it have to be some kind of more legit sauerkraut? Because we eat a fair amount of it, and I've always assumed it was mostly recreational chewing.
As far as I know those things are real enough sauerkraut. I've definitely met people who think sauerkraut is cabbage cooked with vinegar, but I suspect that anyone selling that and calling it sauerkraut would get sued pretty quickly.
The benefits tend to come from the fact that fermentation breaks down a lot of the fibers/etc. that make it harder for the body to get at nutrients, which is the same thing as what cooking does. But fermentation doesn't break down the more sensitive micronutrients that high heat will. So it's (supposedly at least, this is nutrition science) a kind of twofer. Of course if it's canned then you lose out on the second bit anyway, because of cooking. And I guess cooking sauerkraut before eating it would be the same. (But home made sauerkraut at least is magnificent when raw too, so mixing a bit of it into a normal sauerkraut dish after cooking isn't bad at all.)
There's a place near my apartment that has a kimchi hotdog that I need to try. I've been assured by a real live foodie that it's the best hotdog in the DC area.
What is up with coconut oil? All the woo types are hyping it, but there's always an asterisk saying you can't heat it, so how on earth do they cook with it? Are they just gopping it onto salads?
I thought the woo types were drinking coconut water.
You can totally heat it. I've popped popcorn in it, which is obviously not paleo, though I mostly use it to mix with things for hair or skin products. I don't think it's the eighth wonder of the world at all, though.
I tried making my own kimchi one time and nearly had to call in a hazmat team to deal with the result.
My favorite local brewery just released a toasted-coconut porter, made with coconut and cocoa powder. I expected it to taste like chocolate-covered tanning oil, but it was in fact delicious.
77: This is the same question I ask every time diets come up, but how do you manage that while feeding children? Do they eat what you eat or supplement rice or something? Is it difficult to manage? I'm not going to get into all the ways food is a clusterfuck at our house but that needs to change and maybe changing it to something I like and everyone else sucks it up somehow would be better.
You married a German that hates kraut?
Nor cabbage of any sort. We're all befuddled. OTOH, if she were to go vegetarian, sausage would be the hardest for her to give up, so some of the blood ran true.
In truth, she doesn't like any pickled things* - olives, cucumber pickles, capers.... Kind of a shame, given the apparent health benefits, but there it is.
*or tsukimono, the Japanese term of the whole category, a word I know because, of all the myriad things she ate in Japan, that was what she liked least (even less than corn on pizza)
I felt bad walking past the registered dietician with my lunch from McDonald's. But, what you can you do?
Argh. I love my children, but I'm really looking forward to when they leave the house and I'm not accommodating their preferences. (It's not even that I'm bending over backward to accommodate anything, it's just the eating every night in an atmosphere of vague displeasure. Where one of them can muster up some enthusiasm, the other is repelled.)
That's what happens when you send them to magnet schools.
*or tsukimono, the Japanese term of the whole category, a word I know because, of all the myriad things she ate in Japan, that was what she liked least (even less than corn on pizza)
Tsukemono, actually.
Mine all agree on a few things, mainly trout, which Lee has announced she's sick of and doesn't want to see for a while. I'm so sick of cooking all the time and I don't even cook every meal.
You have to be careful. Tsekemon is a Pokemon of the grass type.
I did the gluten-free/grain-free thing for two months before grudgingly trying the entire auto-immune protocol. As I told my doctor then, "If it's entirely psychosomatic, that's fine by me, I'm willing to let my subconscious continue tricking me indefinitely." (My doctor was suggesting testing, but you have to be eating gluten to be tested and I didn't see the point. I already felt so much better that I couldn't imagine going back to grains.)
Anyway, you're supposed to do AIP for 30 days and then try re-introducing foods. So far, all of my re-introductions have been fails. It turns out that my early-onset arthritis pain is a nightshade and alcohol response, so no tomatoes, potatoes, eggplants or peppers or wine for me. My chronic environmental allergies -- I took allergy pills basically every day of my adult life until Sept 2014 -- turn out to be a dairy reaction. So for me, grains alone aren't the answer.
I also tried doing without the sauerkraut, because, yuck, sauerkraut, and felt noticeably worse quickly. Like the gluten, it doesn't matter to me if its psychosomatic as long as my brain is tricking me into feeling great. And it is growing on me. I used to force it down, now I treat it like morning medicine. The kombucha, though, I've definitely gotten attached to.
As for feeding other people, I mostly seem to start with a base that I can eat and then add to it for others. So, for example, I make a salad of shredded cabbage, red onion, grilled shrimp with garlic salt, lime juice and cilantro, and feed my son the same thing plus tomato, rice, hot sauce, & a couple tortillas. I'm eating salad, he's eating burritos. But my picky niece seems pretty willing to eat what I eat, plus granola & milk & more fruit.
101: I've come to believe that feeding children is literally impossible. They have secret chlorophyll or something.
That is kind of shocking. I've been telling my wife for years that if her preference for Corona Light, and now Kokanee, became known to the authorities, her passport would probably be revoked.
I just serve whatever we're having but often make a very simple incredibly easy to make pasta or bread or rice side, or occasional desert. That way the kid gets used to eating meat and also associates grains with super crappy food. Fortunately she's a super adventurous eater and loves bison and lamb almost as much as I do. Kid#2 is a baby but had his first mashed up bison recently.
|| I'm definitely ready to add stronger pain meds to my diet. |>
I seriously think other people are just better parents than I am. I mean, it doesn't help that two of the three have food-related special needs and the third is two years old, but I'm just wiped out. That there is no "what we're having" and I can't count on Lee to eat with the family and then she won't eat leftovers either is also a problem in meal planning. Everything sucks. But grumping about this and how much I don't want to cook made me realize I can just shred up some leftover chicken and heat the leftover potatoes and chop carrots and celery and an apple or something and be done with it. Lee probably won't eat anyway because she went out for a late lunch. And I won't eat because by the time it's all on the table and cut up and served to people and I can sit down, they'll be done. That's also my fault, but if I put the food out sooner Selah mauls it as soon as I head to the kitchen for more.
so no tomatoes, potatoes, eggplants or peppers or wine for me.
Good grief! I would probably go with the pain in that situation.
I don't know if you have to go with the placebo effect to explain sauerkraut helping, though. It really is high in a lot of stuff you need for health. It's just that the pro-biotic/live bacteria culture probably isn't what's doing it itself. (The bacteria in sauerkraut aren't necessarily even the ones in you digestive tract.) If you're cooking it at all, or buying anything but the fancy unpasteurized stuff they aren't in there anyway. Also if you make it yourself it is legitimately a lot better than anything I've bought in a store, to the point where making my own nearly ruined me for anything I can buy (but not entirely because I love sauerkraut).
I seriously think other people are just better parents than I am.
Seriously, Thorn this isn't it. I cook for 4, one of whom is an accommodating adult, and it's a pain in the ass, even with Kai being fairly open-minded. A lot of my brainspace is taken up by menu planning, so there's probably some level on which that makes things like your realization about shredding chicken etc. a little easier for me, but that's me being weird, not you being flawed.
One of the benefits of the anti-gluten thing that has been popular as of late is that I've come to recognize how much I enjoy gluten. I'd never really thought about it before but, yes, gluten is what makes pizza crust so delicious.
Well, I found out a year ago that my stepdaughter was throwing out all the sandwiches I would make her for lunch. Now I found out that she also throws out the fruit. So she eats potato chips and gummy candy for lunch. Then she comes home (she's home alone for a while each afternoon) and eats a whole bag of shredded cheese or a whole box of crackers........ oh, well, what's the point of worrying?
118: Every once in awhile I'll semi-seriously accuse Iris of chucking her lunch, but her denials seem shocked enough that I tend to believe them.
114 -- yeah, no. I rely on a Thorn-like spouse, only have had (so far) to plan meals involving a kid 50% of the time, do takeout or eat-out meals a lot, and am willing to live with an extremely repetitive menu, and meal planning is still a pain in the ass and a substantial part of mental space.
We gave up on packing lunches when we noticed them coming home uneaten fairly often. Honestly, I think my kids mostly live off bagels and snack cakes from the deli near their school.
To the OP.2, I'm very skeptical of the whole hyper-organization thing - I've been in hyper organized settings, and it's nice but it's not that nice - but I do firmly believe that there's a certain amount of organization that can make a big difference. I guess it's like an inverse power law curve (or maybe x=y^2) where there's a steep bit and then a long tail, and the Pinterest stuff is mostly on the tail. Depends on available room, of course - in an NYC apartment, a little clutter can overtake the whole place, while a big house can remain basically neat even while a few rooms are messy.
116, 120: I have vague daydreams about an idyllic past when food was expensive and family members were all semi-starved all the time so they weren't pains in the ass about perfect palatability. "Oooh, scorched boiled potatoes! Those have some calorie value! Can I have more, Mother?"
Then I realize that I'm literally dreaming of starving my family so they'd get on my nerves less, and consider re-evaluating my life choices.
121: I beg her -- "if you don't want it bring it home. Just don't throw it out!" but does she listen?
70: Bow, curtsey, make a leg. I am READY.
I just discovered that the urban livestock store has the good pickling crocks & didn't buy one. The Dwarf Lord has problems with a lot of fermented things, I don't know if he wants them in the kitchen.
Then I realize that I'm literally dreaming of starving my family so they'd get on my nerves less
Instead of starving them, you could just drug their food and get the same benefit. Heavily sedated kids might have their own drawbacks, however.
We have a neighbor (I've mentioned him before -- cranky middle-aged dude with wonderful cologne. Smells awesome) who makes his own sauerkraut and was trying to entice Buck into learning how to do the same. Buck got as far as buying cabbage for the project, but got busy and never cashed in the offered lesson.
Whenever she gets found out -- like when her "supervisor' at Goodwill told us she was throwing out her fruit -- she goes into this hysterical "am I going to be punished?" mode --and nothing we can say can get her out of it, until either me or her mom loses it and starts screaming, "YES YOU ARE GOING TO BE PUNISHED! WE"RE GOING TO HAVE YOU LOCKED IN A TINY CELL! NO TV! NO PLUSHIES NO COMPUTER!" and she's wailing and wailing and then finally our little dog comes over and licks her and then everything's fine again.
Sane people don't pack their kid's lunch because it gets thrown out everyday? I need this kind of validation, because we've only had to provide a lunch for a few months and it's really annoying that it gets thrown out every day.
I just serve whatever we're having but often make a very simple incredibly easy to make pasta or bread or rice side, or occasional desert.
This is what I've been doing. Serve them my meal, along with biscuits from a can, fake mashed potatoes, etc.
I beg her -- "if you don't want it bring it home. Just don't throw it out!" but does she listen?
You might reconsider this if you saw what a packed lunch looks like after it's been dragged around by a teenager all day. We were finding some nastily mashed-up, decaying sandwiches in odd places. And sad, bruised, rotting fruit.
Anyway, I just thought it was important for Thorn to know there are worse parents out there.
'Leaky gut' stuff is at this point is mostly quacks selling snake oil (or whatever), as is a lot of the 'pro-biotic' stuff that gets sold.
I'm sure this is mostly right, but I remember reading some respectable case study where the doctor and his Western diagnosis more-or-less amounted to 'leaky gut', by the western doctor's recounting. It convinced me that there might be such a thing.
"Leaky gut" also needs to be renamed and I don't care if it's just the Greek for "leaky gut," I could, um, stomach that better.
Does "στάζει στομάχι" work?
I used to make 4-part lunches for two of the older kids- a starch, a fruit, a vegetable, a protein- but they'd only eat bits and pieces. So starting this month we mass-produce 5 of the same sandwich for each of them at the beginning of the week, freeze them, then each day lunch is a sandwich pulled from the freezer in the morning plus a piece of fruit. The oldest was already basically on that plan although he had bizarre choices for his non-sandwich item, things like canned olives.
At the beginning of the year we started getting charges on our lunch account for one of the kids and thought he was throwing out the lunch I packed to buy lunch, it turned out a kid in his class has a similar sounding name and they were charging the wrong account.
Daycare includes snack and lunch and we have no idea what/if the toddler eats. We did recently confirm that they are feeding her vegetarian as we requested when they mentioned fish sticks for lunch but said they had given her something else.
And I won't eat because by the time it's all on the table and cut up and served to people and I can sit down, they'll be done. That's also my fault, but if I put the food out sooner Selah mauls it as soon as I head to the kitchen for more.
Obviously there's a major difference in scale between your serving situation and ours, but we do family style, but with stuff that's going to be cut up for kid/s cut up before serving so it's just a matter of putting it on the plate, so dishing is pretty quick and there isn't any heading to the kitchen for more. Also the food in serving dishes goes on the table before anyone sits at their places to eat. Would that help?
(I also very frequently find meal planning and cooking totally enervating, and I'm pretty sure I'm well on the super-enthusiastic end of the spectrum with respect to that stuff. It's just A BIG DRAG.)
138: Yeah, I serve family style, but that means bringing 3-4 plates or bowls to the table generally, which I can't do in one go. She's just really fast at climbing onto the table (or anything else) and then throwing things.
The thing that makes me crazy is that, as they're walking to the table, have not seen or tasted what's for dinner, they say "what do we have to eat to be done?/I hate this/this is yucky." The answer is always the same: you have to eat your vegetables and taste the dish. It just drives me nuts that they're not open to the idea that dinner might not be disgusting.
And I'm really just being a whiner about that one because it was such a hassle to find and clean up all the pieces of carrot she chewed up and spat two nights ago. There are workable solutions, like the rest of the family being helpful rather than glued to the tv, that usually make a huge difference.
Thorn's situation sounds like a much bigger pain in the ass, though.
141: Famine really is the only solution. A light breakfast, dry, stale bread and water for lunch, with perhaps some raw cabbage as a relish, and then see if they turn their noses up at dinner!
145: Yeah, we've got that history AND eats dirt and I'm not finding it really helps. I have to have plausible food available every 2-3 hours or the world will end, and I really can't blame them for feeling that way.
One thing that has helped is introducing Mara, who's the pickiest, to Calvin and Hobbes. "Die, food, die!" got her through something she wouldn't usually eat the other night.
I'm picturing one of those live sea creature dinners from Japan.
Visiting my cousins surprised me a lot, because it was the first I realized they didn't care about meal planning. Dinner was post-soccer, pre-bath and everyone sat down. They put out a dish of walnuts, largish chunks of Parmesan and celery and carrot sticks. I thought it would be the hors d'ouvres, but that was the dinner. Healthy enough and easy, no complaints. It made me consider de-emphasizing dinner.
147: Oh, geez, I wasn't suggesting adding any more stress to your kids' relationship to food. Just daydreaming about having instilled better manners in mine.
149: Your cousins are worse than Hitler.
150: I'm just kidding! And reminding myself not to complain too much because I do know what they're coming from and how far they've come. I just want a dishes fairy or a meal-planning one or something. Instead I'm making salted potatoes as a treat so that it won't be an all-leftovers meal and maybe Lee will eat.
Hitler at least liked soft cheeses?
salted potatoes as a treat
I've been looking at those on FB. How salty are they? That is, are we talking inedible coating but the inside is good, or are the skins potato-chip-level edibly salty?
I only left one salty and I'd say it was potato chip-level. That was the fan favorite, so I promised to make more. I'll cook all the leftovers into something in a few days.
They put out a dish of walnuts, largish chunks of Parmesan and celery and carrot sticks. I thought it would be the hors d'ouvres, but that was the dinner. Healthy enough and easy, no complaints.
I would be gnawing off my own arm.
I worry about the dual-mode/split-shift thing we're doing where we only eat dinner as a family on the weekends and during the week my wife just feeds the kid slightly-random things that make up a meal, and then after bedtime I make the real dinner for us (sometimes leftovers from that make it into his lunch or dinners, bit only sometimes). It feels like he needs more practice at the "this is what dinner is" game.
Not to be the voice of doom, but we got into that pattern and it made it hard to transition into respectable family dinners with everyone sitting down at the same time and using cutlery.
(Do I say 'not to be the voice of doom' a lot? It suddenly felt like a very familiar turn of phrase. Maybe I am the voice of doom.)
Voice of doom is more badass than you, LB, unless you're secretly a member of say Electric Wizard or Eyehategod or lord help us you are actually Tony Iommi.
Although I guess Ozzy makes more sense as the voice of doom. Are you Ozzy?
It was very expensive, discovering that I liked to eat parmesan in two ounce chunks like every other cheese.
Thorn, this is only a minor fix, but maybe a tray to carry a whole dinner out at once? With or without pinafore apron.
I was going to suggest 164.last.
Also 141. Yes. Yesss
Not to be the voice of doom but Lee, who's the one who specifically requested salty potatoes, took one bite and dubbed these inedible salty, so I washed them and now they're just potatoes. Fine by me as I don't eat salt.
We all eat together every night that Rory's home, but we also eat all of our dinners in front of the TV. We've gotten to the point that the manfriend more or less does all the cooking, which I feel mildly guilty about, but he is far more diligent about including vegetables so my guilt is assuaged by good nutrition. I also have a batch of sauerkraut fermenting on the counter and I am eager to see how it tastes when you don't get confused and use cumin instead of carraway. I plan on continuing to believe that the probiotics will be beneficial.
You could make your daughter do the cooking if that makes you feel better.
Must have been more important to us, I guess. When our daughter was born we had her in her carrier next to the dinner table at first, then in a highchair but always fed at the same time we were eating, and as much as possible the same food. Never a separate thing. Pattern repeated when my son was born, daughter moved to booster and reinforcing the significance for everyone.
Neither will eat everything to this day, and we plan special meals for any combination of us, serving the thing the absent person doesn't like. But dinnertime is something powerfully inculcated, and they've expressed wonder at encountering people for whom it ain't so.
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OT: Has anybody here read Gustave? I happened to see it the other day and am still mildly depressed by it.
The two customer reviews are a fairly accurate description (though I'd give it a higher rating, since I think it is quite well done), but what the heck was the person from Publishers Weekly thinking. Reading the quoted sentence from their review makes me want to throw things.
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At what age is it reasonable to expect a kid to consistently chew with their mouth closed? 3.5yo is utterly failing at it. I know it is useless to sit beside her intoning "mouth closed... mouth closed please... mouth closed PLEASE" but omfg the lip smacking drives me insane maybe I shouldnt have had kids
Must have been more important to us, I guess.
I'm going to assume that you just weren't thinking when you wrote this, and that you didn't actually mean to hold your high esteem of family dinners to be somehow superior to the (often failed!) efforts of households with two working parents and early toddler bedtimes.
When I was a kid, I would sometimes inadvertently scrape my fork against my teeth, which it turned out drove my brother nuts. So then I did it all the time on purpose, to drive him nuts (because, hi, I'm an annoying little brother). The other day, I was eating with my brother's 5yo stepdaughter, who did the scrape thing on purpose. When I didn't react, she said, evilly, "Did you know your brother hates that scraping noise?" I said, yep, sure do, and I high-fived her.
None of us eats the same stuff, so it's usually something for the kids (and the older kid can't have nuts, gluten, dairy, or eggs), salad for me, and my wife will do some Deborah Madison veggie magic. Younger kid would eat a rusted car, but the older kid isn't hungry yet, or doesn't like this, or whatever, and then he's hungry at bedtime. We've tried to starve him into submission, but then he just turns into an insane basket case who doesn't want anything. But he's into food just enough of the time that we figure it's a phase and at some point, a decade down the line, he'll be a good eater.
Toddler is the slowest eater ever. Makes it impossible to get out the door in the morning. I allow 30 minutes for her to eat and still not enough, have to drag her away from the table to leave on time. Come on, kid, eat like a real American.
179: Only works if you put it on a bun.
My sister went through a phase where she refused to eat any meat but pork when she was about three. My parents started christening all meat pork-whatever. So, there was pork-chicken, pork-beef, and so on. We were both very picky kids (and remain fairly picky adults).
When we refused to eat most of a meal (after trying a bite of everything), we were allowed as much bread and butter as we wanted. We loved bread and butter, so this was basically not a punishment.
175 is funny, but the thought of that scraping sound makes me shudder.
175: So much less trouble than waiting until she's 14 and getting a tattoo.
O switched dramatically from being an eater of everything to being an eater of nothing. He'd better switch back soon, because I am not sure humans can survive on bagels, tofu, and strawberry kefir.
If the bagels have cream cheese, yes it can.
Love 175.
Our kid used to eat slowly, but has always eaten relatively widely, and is pretty much omnivorous now. His lunch box usually comes home looking like the crumbs got licked out of it. I think this is partly due to persistence on our part with the you have to try it method and only providing a full on alternative if for ex hot peppers were involved (fully acknowledge this is a huge drag, it goes on for years) AND his underlying nature (a stubborn cuss on some things but generally easygoing). Maybe lack of near age siblings so no mob dynamics? But step kids also easy eaters and they are close in age. It's impossible to pull apart all the factors. We have homemade pizza and a movie nights on Sundays, but other than that no screens during meals, I think that is probably the top thing I'd avoid with kids, way above obsessing about home cooking or manners. We were able to make manners and food deliciousness a priority because of having the resources and that being important to us in particular, but that's preference. Television during meals and eating between meals (please note I count 5 meals a day for kids) seem different to me, like they have health/development consequences. But honestly we know so very little about how any of this works.
The discouraging thing about parenting is what a long long game it is. Luckily the little buggers regularly managed to amuse.
184: I know a very hale and hearty rugby player who ate nothing but ketchup and white bread sandwiches for years, so don't hold your breath!
174: I'd been trying to phrase that exact sentiment.
Our kids' favorite snack is ketchup on tortillas. We don't fight it but it tastes disgusting.
I think ours basically aren't hungry at night. They eat like four breakfasts before lunch, and they don't complain about being hungry after dinner, so the not-eating dinner itself isn't something we fuss over.
Four breakfasts each, of course.
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I'm sure ajay will agree with me that the real tragedy of the controversy surrounding American Sniper is that it obscures all the good our brave soldiers and operators did in killing Al-Quaida's #3 guy in Iraq all those times.
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I'm sure ajay will agree with me that the real tragedy of the controversy surrounding American Sniper is that it obscures all the good our brave soldiers and operators did in killing Al-Quaida's #3 guy in Iraq all those times.
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[I was trying to post that once for each dead #3 Al-Qaida guy, but my enter button stuck.]
My co parent invested a lot in training the kid to take longer naps and so be able to stay up later.* He was the stay at home parent, so his choice. But it isn't a choice at all if you are relying on someone else's schedule during the day, I don't think continental hours daycare is a thing yet even here in Absurdistan aka San Francisco. Kid was still regularly passed out by the time I got home. If someone manages to have an age-appropriate convo while the kid(s) eat a reasonable amount of food, the bases are covered. Don't make it worse for people!
*For which he was widely considered to be committing a heinous act of parental malpractice by many many many.
I know more than a few little frenchies who eat ketchup on noodles, they call it "sauce", so ewww!
My policy with my kid (& visiting nieces and nephews) was "Don't eat what you don't like but I don't want to hear about it." If they complain at the table, the plate gets taken away and they get excused. But I think I have a pretty high tolerance for letting them go to bed hungry, plus an extremely high tolerance for letting them not follow the government's rules for a balanced diet. Since required vegetables, no-thank-you helpings, and the need to clean your plate did not lead me to make healthy eating choices after I left home (probably the contrary), I didn't feel the need to repeat what felt like my parents' mistakes.
My single real case study, after various bouts of pickiness, eats absolutely anything now, the more exotic the better. (He hunts down interesting ethnic restaurants for us to try.) My more limited case studies eat better for me than they do for their parents, but it's tough to say what would happen if they lived with me. I really doubt they'd starve, though, or even suffer from any nutritional deficiencies. And they probably wouldn't go to bed hungry more than once or twice.
It is easy to underestimate small children's capacity for irrationality and stubborn resistance. Withholding dinner would have had similar unhinged results in our house to those ogged describes. There are so few generally applicable "rules", truly.
It is easy to underestimate small children's capacity for irrationality and stubborn resistance.
If you've never seen one, sure.
We are dedicated to having a family dinner, but honestly, we just got lucky with the Calabat. He's been eating what we've been eating since he was around ten months old, and he eats what we eat at supper unless it's very spicy. Sometimes he wants yogurt or applesauce, too, but we usually just let him eat what he wants. The pediatrician said as long as we're offering him a variety of choices that it didn't matter too much if he ignored foods now and then, and we've found this to be true. One week he'll ignore all his veggies, and the next all he'll want is peas and carrots.
My sister's kid is just over a year and doesn't like anything that isn't a puree or a cereal puff. Kids. Go figure.
Lately I'm just impressed by the size of his appetite. We will be so screwed when he's a teenager.
175 is brilliant.
We saw a glowingly healthy young Great Dane romping on Ocean Beach last weekend, and all I thought was "damn that has got to be an enormous food bill." Is this a new way to flaunt wealth, have a pet that consumes the equivalent of a pony each week?
I feel sure that you all want to know that I keep reading the title of this post as "Necrotic Trends."
Faith Popcorn's posthumous testament.
203: I have a coworker who has a couple Great Danes and holy shit are those things money pits on the vet bills alone. One ate a bunch of socks and they had to be surgically retrieved to the tune of a couple grand. And it's looking like there's a couple hip replacements in the future and those are something like several grand a pop. Dog owners are out of their fucking minds.
My new supervisor has a cancerous dog, and spends her vacation time taking it to the veterinary oncologist every other Friday.
At a certain point, you've got to run the numbers, think of the human members of your family, and just put the dog down so your kids can go to college and everybody can eat the not-cancer parts.
I keep reading the title of this post as "Necrotic Trends."
I was wondering if I was the only one.
If I were the only one? Anyway, I was wondering.
My two have definitely benefited from their early upbringing in Japan, where picky eating was seen as a moral failing. In kindergarten lunch was mostly provided, and they were expected to eat what they were given. On the days mothers had to provide a lunchbox, we were told to include at least one food we knew our children actively disliked, to encourage them to learn to eat it. In elementary school, too, all kids got the same school lunch, and the rule was that you had to take at least a little of everything, and eat it all down to the final grain of rice.
So these days they may still complain mightily about certain foods - mushrooms! are you trying to kill us AGAIN, Mum? - but they will at least try most things, even the game Nworb sometimes brings over from his local market. Last Saturday's offering was rabbit with marsala and prunes, which although it elicited accusations of barbarity did disappear quite rapidly.
Is rabbit game? Or should that be a question for Dan Savage?
I'm pretty sure rabbit is considered game, even though it's usually farmed. You end up with the distinction being between game and wild game.
204, 210: There are at least three of us.
Surely the rule is that if you have to worry about shot, it's game. Otherwise it's not.
If you're looking to start a new neurosis, why not look here for inspiration?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Culture-bound_syndromes
I edited it to add "Internet troll" a while ago but some humourless wikipedian stickler has reverted it.
206. I used to have a coworker with a couple of St Bernards, and not only were the food bills insane (daily amounts that wold have comfortably fed me and Mrs y for a week), but it turns out St Bernards are prone to heart conditions, so she had to take one in for triple bypass surgery. She refused to say what that cost.
I'm not sure food is the real expense with a great dane - they eat a lot more but, well, dog food isn't exactly fresh vegetables and steak either. Health care and replacing things* are where the expenses really come in. They're such sweet dogs that I'm occasionally tempted by the idea (and perfect for apartments!), but they live like seven or eight years which is really not long enough at all.
*They're not particularly destructive or energetic - I wasn't joking about apartment dogs. But, well, they start out as puppies except puppies that make it upwards of 100 lbs, which is a lot of pounds of puppy, especially in the destructive chewing stage.
I'm still thinking about getting a used chihuahua. They're cheap and it would probably die about the time my son goes to college.
dog food isn't exactly fresh vegetables and steak either.
It is - well steak, anyway - when you're dealing with huge pedigree mutant bears. The St Bernards I mentioned ate two pounds of chuck steak each per day on top of a ton of the dried chow. If they just ate the dried stuff, or canned dog food, they got sick, so it was cheaper in the long run.
Really big dogs do have important different nutritional needs, yeah, but you can actually get dog food for them that meets that. You don't need to be feeding them chuck steak (let alone that much*) every day.
Also there's no excuse for getting a chihuahua when you can almost as easily get like fifteen chihuahuas. They say a big dog is really good for home security, but I bet a decent sized swarm of chihuahuas would be even better. Also they'd be more successful at waking you up if literally anything including nothing at all happened someone tried to break in.
*Seriously, even really large dogs don't weigh more than an average human and, I mean, I eat plenty but that seems excessive.
Fifteen chihuahuas can skeletonize a human in twenty seconds.
I make my kids cook once a week each, which has to include a pescetarian option for Kid B. (And they add their own ingredients to the online shop.) This hasn't widened what any of them will eat, but has drastically reduced the complaining, because they have realised how crap it is to cook and have people moan about it. So heebie, all you have to do is wait 10-12 years and everything will be fine.
Kid A is the pickiest of the 4, and the one who got all the lovingly homemade baby food. She gets even pickier when there's anything else going on (the most recent regression being university applications last year).
xelA isn't generally that picky about food. Although he's being a bit more of a dick about it at the moment, because he's in toddler-asshole mode. But generally, he'll eat anything. He's not a big fan of white meat -- chicken, etc. Anything a bit dry or fibrous, he won't eat. But other than that, I can't think of much he doesn't eat. He likes most veggies, pulses, etc, and he likes beef [mince, meatballs, etc]. We don't give him very spicy food, but he doesn't mind a bit of mild spicing. He actively likes strong flavours, like strong cheese, or strong tasting vegetables.
If we are in the house together [all three of us] he just eats what we eat. But if I'm looking after him on my own [which is quite a bit], it's about 50/50 whether he and I will eat the same thing, or not. I sometimes don't want to eat at his meal times, so I'll just cook for him, and then eat myself when he's having a nap.
I just want a dishes fairy or a meal-planning one or something.
I wouldn't be helpful with the dishes (ow, my eczema!) but I would so love being a meal-planning fairy for a living. (Or at least, I think I would.)
I'll bet you'd be great at it, Paren! And there are subscription services like that, I know, along with the ones that send all the ingredients for meals in the mail. I wouldn't do that because cheap and grumpy is better than spending money in my mind, which is why magic would be the best option.
The wizard would probably want paid for the magic. There's probably a fanfic explaining that this is how the Malfoys got all their money.
"This hasn't widened what any of them will eat, but has drastically reduced the complaining, because they have realised how crap it is to cook and have people moan about."
THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS!!!!! Now that we are thoroughly into teenagerhood the inestimable value of consideration for others as the ethical foundation for manners is vividly present in my life every. single. day. The dragness of slogging through years and years of pleasantly, persistently insisting on politeness & consideration is put into perspective when you realize yes it did build lasting muscles and reflexes in your 6 foot plus roommate with a still immature brain and strong opinions and by god he would be horribly intolerable to live with if there wasn't some toehold of civilization to work with. It's a long long game but soooo worth playing.
229: I got a free trial subscription to a popular site. As far as I could tell, total waste of money for most people. They mostly took from blogs and presumed a high interest in cooking and access to a lot of ingredients/money - it seemed to me that their target audience probably already had read those recipes.
I think what most people need is a temporary service that helps get them set up with practical meals that they can rotate through, with occasional checks back in to introduce new things to the rota to avoid tedium. They also need meal plans that build on what they've already got, left overs, etc. (Or, if they make you buy an expensive ingredient, something that uses the rest of it in the next few days, etc.)
I have this semi-ridiculous cookbook that I have *never* cooked from but am obsessed with - The Kitchen Revolution which actually plots an entire year's worth of meals, week by week, with the meal plans building on what you've done the previous day, etc. It deeply satisfies me, even as I suspect a lot of the recipes are only so-so.
To be a bit over-earnest, the one book I got and read in the week before knowing Mara was coming and when she moved in was Ellyn Satter's Secrets of Feeding a Healthy Family because we knew she had major feeding problems and I didn't want to pass along any of my own dysfunction or make things worse. It's great for figuring out how to help kids get comfortable eating and also great in terms of discussing how to actually plan and execute family meals, with recipes. I should probably get my copy back from the friend I lent it to and let the big girls weigh in on what recipes sound good and which ones they could help with, which is another easy way of getting buy-in. Well, sometimes.
That sounds really interesting. I'm going to have to check it out.
232: Not too long ago there was an Archie sized magazine that did exactly that. Weekly shopping list, pantry checklist, slightly themed weeks to use up specialty purchases, putting aside hassly-prepped ingredients to use in an easy dinner midweek. Meat-dependent, or I might have subscribed. (All from fresh IIRC - there are magazines of the same shape devoted to doctoring canned soup and deli meat, but this wasn't it.) Possibly a Martha Stewart spinoff.
These days, Teapot is consistently excited about trying individual ingredients as I cook (while watching from the kitchen helper thing that Ogged recommended; best purchase ever). Rye flour? And also raw oats? And also olive oil? And also salt? And also raw egg? And also everything else? More please! And yet when the foods he's been coveting are put in his bowl and moved to the table, we've got 50-50 odds on whether he'll climb up and eat a few bites or go into full-body rigid wailing as though we're trying to poison him. Good times.
235: Yeah, I had a subscription to that, but for the life of me I can't remember the title. Pretty sure it was a Martha publication. I notice magazines trying to do this here and there but they rarely seem to fully commit the way that one did.
Someone just linked to some Buzzfeed two week cleanse program that did that, and while the cleanse aspect of it sounded stupid, it did sound immensely relaxing. Precise shopping lists, what to freeze, when to cook what, exactly how to reuse the leftovers.
238: That was me and it was the clean eating challenge.
For something a little more service-y (and expensive), there's Blue Apron.
234: I am a strong believer in her theories of feeding as the healthiest way of teaching eating competence. Her division of responsibility is brilliant and very helpful to me. I'm hoping I can get back to being more excited about cooking and the rest of it rather than stuck in the drudgery bit.
239: "Stupid" might have been a little harsh. I think I have a knee-jerk negative reaction to 'clean' as modifying eating. It seems like such a bad metaphor.
241: Oh, the cleanse aspect of it is plenty dumb, and while "clean eating" doesn't bother me as much as it does you I'm not gonna put any effort into defending it. I just find the thing useful in a bunch of ways.
I really was daydreaming about doing it, but I'd need two weeks where I wasn't trying to feed anyone else.
You aren't Oxfam. It would probably be something you could work without too much damage.
I just saw 243 and thought this was the Sheldon Silver thread. Yes, you should run for his seat, LB!
244: Oh, I could do it if I really wanted to, it just wouldn't be relaxing, which would be the attraction, because I'd either be talking the rest of the family into tolerating it, making different food for them (not that I do all the cooking, but I do a chunk of it), or explaining that I was completely checked out of dealing with anyone else's food for a couple of weeks.
Literally no thought about meals for two weeks, without the unpleasantness of living off takeout, would be nice, but doing it thoughtlessly would only be available if I lived alone or had a compliant family.
232 - I have Nigel Slater's Kitchen Diaries, in which he describes what he makes for dinner for a year. I love the idea of eating it all at the right time.
OT - Kid D was just looking at Michael Jackson stuff because a friend of hers is really into him. She suddenly said: "He used to be black!!!"
225: But only a big dog with powerful jaws can dispose of the rest.
247: Yes, I just love both of those! He has such a lovely way of writing.
Here, I'll give you suckers for free my "15 minutes a day, every day, hassle-free meal plan."
Day 1, Sauteed Kale and Steak.
Day 2, Steak and Sauteed Kale.
Day 3, Sausage and sauteed Collard Greens.
Day 4, Ground Beef and Sauteed Kale.
Day 5, Sauteed Kale and Steak
Repeat forever, feel good. If you want to get creative, try different kinds of steak, like lamb or bison. If you want to go nuts, use chicken breasts or a fish steak. The end.
I don't think I've ever had anything leafy that was sauteed except spinach.
Precise shopping lists, what to freeze, when to cook what, exactly how to reuse the leftovers.
See, I would love to do this for people. Exactly what I find fun. I knew there had to be a market.
251: Could not handle that level of monotony.
I am just not on the kale train. Get out of town, kale.
I don't want to claim to be a supertaster because it seems like the sort of thing a person shouldn't self-diagnose or take on as an identity and yet I'm also not going to get it tested or anything, but I have an aversion to sauteed kale or collard greens and also can't handle cooked broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, green beans, that sort of thing. I can force myself to eat spinach and the raw versions are fine but far from my favorites, but every time I look at a paleo menu or the clean eating one there's enough "blech!" stuff that I'm disinclined to look deeper. Halford's menu sounds like hell, though better if I could substitute the chicken breast or fish steak.
You can even add variety by using different kinds of seasonings, like hot sauce or Santa Maria seasoning. Adds no time. If you really need variety, that's what restaurants on the weekend are for.
also can't handle cooked broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage,
For these, and kale too, have you tried roasting? Chop to small bite-size, toss with plenty of oil (salt, garlic powder, what you will), spread on a cookie sheet and roast (stirring around occasionally) until they're quite browned? I can eat boiled/steamed/sauteed vegetables from your list, but I recognize the aversion. Roasted, though, they're totally different. (not sure about green beans, but the rest of them). Give it a shot for cauliflower at least, which is wonderful that way. And don't fear overroasting -- nothing short of charcoal is overdone.
I would make fun of the meal plan in 251, but for the past couple of months I'd say a solid 50% of my dinners have consisted of chicken salad with some sort of vegetable, so I can't really claim the moral high ground.
To be clear, by "sauteed" I mean "cook in a bunch of olive oil, butter, or ghee" and add salt. Don't boil that shit.
I like pretty much every other green more than kale. Why did kale win the Green of the Decade position?
I have an honest-to-god beginners cooking question: what's the least hassle, reasonable way to cook a steak if I don't feel like busting out the grill? The things I can find online all have things like "pre-heat the skillet in the oven to 500, don't let the oil scald you, sear the outside, and then broil." Is there something more akin to cooking chicken?
I've roasted brussels sprouts, which makes them edible but still horrible IMO. I don't tell the girls I feel this way and I still cook the stuff and just eat small portions. I don't force them to eat disliked foods (because Ellyn Satter) but Lee does and Mara just started liking broccoli because of that. Broccoli and cauliflower are the worst, but I guess I could try it.
Is the answer not to buy steak and to buy chuck roast or something that can be just chucked in the oven?
261: It tastes the worse, so people feel the most virtuous eating it.
262 -- Cast iron skillet, brown for like 3 minutes per side, put into an oven at 375 degrees that you've been heating while prepping the steaks and chopping the Kale for like 10 more minutes, done. You don't even need to put anything in the cast-iron skillet before you start browning, but a little butter or salt doesn't hurt. Done.
I read in Slate that cauliflower is going to be the next kale.
10 more minutes
That sounds like that would result in a pretty darn well-done steak. No?
Obviously, if you're not searing your steak, cooling it off in liquid nitrogen, and then cooking it sous-vide you're ruining it.
268 -- the 10 minutes is based on thickness, so you can vary that as needed. To be clear, the cast iron skillet goes in the oven, so you only have one thing to clean, plus that one thing is easy to clean. Non-stick skillet for the kale cooked in oil. Done done done.
I think I'd last about three days on that before I killed somebody for a starch.
Cauliflower is delicious. I can only assume that Thorn's use of "cauliflower" is some sort of regional slang, possibly for uncured tobacco leaves.
Cured tobacco leaves are delicious.
Of course; that's why I had to specify.
Took me so, so many years to quit that. Still, all the teeth I had when I started tobacco are still in my head.
The last time Lee had successfully given up smoking (though the current time may still take!) we were driving to our friends' farm and she pointed at a field full of big green plants and said "Now THAT looks delicious!" and I got furious until I realized she thought they were greens rather than tobacco. I realize that my cauliflower problems are both an aesthetic and moral failing, but ugh ugh ugh.
Thorn, no one is going to be mad if you skip the vegetable part of my meal plan and go steak-exclusive. It's an option. Sometimes if I get really lazy I substitute almonds from a jar for a vegetable.
To be clear, the cast iron skillet goes in the oven, so you only have one thing to clean, plus that one thing is easy to clean.
Doesn't this limit how many steaks you can cook easily? Maybe two at a time?
I've roasted brussels sprouts, which makes them edible but still horrible IMO.
Oh. Well, then roasting might not solve all your problems -- I was thinking of sprouts particularly as wonderful roasted. But if you don't like them even then, that doesn't work for you.
You know, Lee has probably never heard of paleo. I'm not sure she'd be willing enough to give up french fries, but she'd be all about the steak-and-bacon part. Maybe it's worth having a conversation, especially because grilling is her job and so I only have to do sides and cleanup when she's in charge of the meat (and grilled veggies, if I get those together).
277: Smoking is easier to quit than chewing. At least it is if you don't need to spit. You can do it anywhere with nobody noticing.
279: One big steak, suitable for fitting into a big skillet, can certainly feed a bunch of people. Once you're serving each person their own individual steak, rather than carving after cooking, it does turn into a jigsaw puzzle, a bit.
Brussel sprouts deep fried in goose fat and dressed with lime juice, chills and fish sauce .... or cooked in excessive amounts of cream until the outsides carmelize ... oh oh oh I'm hungry now!
Roasted green beans are heavenly, as good as any other roasted veggie. I saw a mention of roasting favas in the pod (I presume not the outer pod but the inner skin) that sounded yummy. I might actually cook favas from my cover crop this year. Otherwise, peeling them twice just isn't worth it.
You can also sub in one of those bags of green beans which you cook in three minutes in the microwave after cutting a corner of the bag, with butter put on top at the end. For variety.
Roast or grill them in the outer, velvet lined pod when they are still slender like elegant long fingers, olive oil and enough salt, eat the whole thing, yum. But then I'm mad for green things in general so you may not like them.
261: Farmshares, is my bet. We used to eat kale out of duty, but lacinato kale has long since become my favorite green. Nutty, not bitter, never the chalky too-much-oxalate thing that spinach sometimes has. It's one of those things that I can't wait to eat from the moment I start cutting it up. Possibly I should have my iron levels checked.
(Also I distinctly remember serving you a kale salad. Maybe even more than once? Sorry about that.)
...which produce green beans absolutely identical to regular frozen green beans, put in a pyrex bowl and microwaved. Stir halfway through. Either way, the microwave is actually great for just strictly steaming things.
283 -- yeah, you need a big cast iron pan. Two big guys that go in there easy are enough to easily feed 3 of us, including my hungry kid and known bigtime consumer of steaks me. Or if you can tolerate a small additional step you can transfer the steaks to a roasting pan or something.
289 is good to know. I think kale tastes like ass raw, but then I don't understand why people like raw vegetables in general. It tastes real good cooked in a bunch of butter, ghee, or olive oil, with salt.
I don't understand why people like raw vegetables in general
This. The rest of my family are rabbits or something; they're much happier with salads than with cooked vegetables. I don't actually mind salad, but it's boring and time-consuming: I can spend twenty minutes eating raw spinach leaf by leaf, or I can eat the same amount of spinach cooked in four forkfuls and enjoy it more.
I find lacinato kale loads more enjoyable than the not-lacinato kind.
(Which is which? I can't remember if lacianato is flat or curly.)
More of 292: Well cooked bell peppers are delicious and rich tasting; raw, they're crunchy and flavorless.
Lacinato = Tuscan kale, the darker, narrower one.
Regular kale is the big broad curly leaves that you would feed to livestock.
Roasting is my favourite thing to do to vegetables by far. So easy! And I do like kale, especially lacinato.
Maybe I'll try roasting vegetables! I don't think I've ever done that consciously.
the paper magazines may be defunct but
http://www.marthastewart.com/912287/grocery-bag/@center/276948/dinner-tonight
has 23 five-night plans including veggie and meat-light and low-cal & comfort food.
297: If you were angry at the livestock.
How long does it take? I'm expecting that during the extra time it takes (compared to microwaving) I'll find something to snack on and then I won't be interested in eating my vegetables.
The key is don't be afraid of browning. There's a stage at which most vegetables are cooked in some sense, but still boring, and then twenty minutes later they're really good. Carrots, anything cabbagy, sweet potatoes, cut up winter squash, and so on.
292: I don't like salad that much either. I poop identifiable bits of leaves. I should probably chew more.
Depends on what it is, and how small it's cut up. Anywhere between 15 and 45 minutes.
I do always overcook carrots. They end up wizened. (And now my nickname is 'The Wizener.')
I ordered kale chips from this trendy new farm-to-table fast food restaurant in my neighborhood. It came in a paper bag and it looked like it might be cremains, but it tasted pretty good.
Is the answer not to buy steak and to buy chuck roast or something that can be just chucked in the oven?
London broil seems like just the dish for you. The cut is flank steak, I think. (Though it's sometimes labelled as London broil.)
If you don't eat them, they aren't "livestock".
Eat them or sell them to somebody to eat.
312: We didn't do that either.
You are correct -- they were not livestock.
They were companion animals.
Some day I am going to have a Swiss Brown Cow and a donkey, and i will feed them Mangel-wurzels. But only I they like them. Also this will all have to wait until after magnificent wealth descends on me as my better half is about as anti-domestic animal as it us possible to be, so only possible consistent with domestic harmony in the context of semi-vast grounds and much staff.
only if they like them, bad phone typing as per usual.
I don't like salad that much either. I poop identifiable bits of leaves. I should probably chew more.
Try eating the leaves again -- maybe you'll be able to fully digest them the second time. That's what my bunnies would do!
You can also sub in one of those bags of green beans which you cook in three minutes in the microwave after cutting a corner of the bag
... just like our ancestors the cavepeople!
315: at Cow College I was responsible for the care and milking of a Brown Swiss named Malice. The other cows were named Strife and Beth.
I am very jealous. You are so lucky!