Category Archives: food

Kon Tiki

Posted on June 8, 2010 | 5 Comments

In 1947, Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl set sail across the pacific in a hand-made raft to prove his hypothesis that the Polynesian islands could have been reached and thus settled by South Americans in pre-Columbian times, using only the kinds of stuff they had available at the time: wood, bamboo, and a whole lot of perseverance.

He made it.

This summer, Michael’s Daddy is attempting to prove that he can learn how to cook true Polynesian dishes using ingredients he can find in and around Portland, Oregon. Without making his family ill or desirous of a merciful end in the process.

Confession time (and by stating this publicly, I become committed to it): I have had this dream of opening a Polynesian-style restaurant for a number of years now, and I need to have a good base of Polynesian recipes to start from.

And by Polynesian recipes, I mean truly South Pacific Islands: Tahiti, Hawaii, Tonga, Samoa, the Cook islands, etc.

I don’t mean Chinese food. Don’t get me wrong: I love Chinese food, but it’s already well represented. And I’m also not talking about Caribbean dishes either; that’s in the Atlantic.

So what is Polynesian food? Good question. There’s not a lot of info on it out there, because it gets muddied by timelines and external influences, such as the Chinese food thing; the Pacific Rim is a big area and after a certain point in world history, things became available to the islands that weren’t available before. Such as Spam. I know Spam is a big thing in Hawaii now, but it didn’t use to be. And in every “Hawaiian” or “Tiki” restaurant I’ve ever been in, the menu has consisted mostly of Chinese food. Again, that’s fine, but it’s not what I’m looking for.

What would the Pacific Islanders have made, traditionally, before they were influenced by outsiders?

What did they have to work with? What were the native plants and animals they could use? And how did they prepare their dishes?

These are the questions I’m going to try to answer this summer, as each week I try out a new recipe, working with ingredients that would have been available to the islanders, and using techniques that are as close as possible to their methods.

Last night was my first real attempt: pork Lau Lau wrapped in Ti leaves, served with a coconut cream sauce and fruit salad.

I was able to find Ti leaves at a local Asian market. I got the coconuts there as well, in hopes they’d be better than the dry, nearly useless ones that are at the local grocery stores.

Preparing coconut cream isn’t hard, but it can get messy. I used a hatchet to knock off the pointy end (the one without the eyes) and pour out the water inside (there are uses for coconut water, but I’m not ready to explore that yet). Cracking open the shell and scraping out the coconut is a bit of a labor, as is peeling the skin off of the meat. I used a food processor to shred the coconut (short on time; didn’t have all day to pound on it with a mortar and pestle) and then put it in the center of a clean cloth over a bowl and poured warm milk on it, then wrapped the cloth up and squeezed out the cream. Takes some muscle. I sauteed some green onions, ginger and basil in a little canola oil, seasoned with salt, stirred in a small amount of corn starch and then added the coconut cream and let that simmer for a while.

The pork I’d prepared earlier, cutting the chops into little 1 inch cubes and marinating in a little lime juice, liquid smoke, salt and water. After searing the chunks on both sides, I wrapped them in the Ti leaves and set that in the oven at 275 degrees for five hours. The idea is that the meat cooks low and slow, with steam as the primary heat conductor to produce a moist, tender, delicious result.

The result was, in fact, neither moist nor tender. Though I’d wrapped the pork up nicely and covered the baking dish tightly with foil, the whole conglomeration ran out of steam (literally) somewhere between 3:00 and 4:00 PM. What we ended up gnawing on for dinner were brittle, charred pork rocks. Covered in coconut cream. And it was delicious. sort of. My family is so very kind to me, smiling and giving me praise while loudly crunching on meaty pumice.

They really enjoyed the pineapple and kiwi fruit salad though.

I haven’t given up on this recipe. I need to do this on a weekend, when I can be home to monitor it throughout the cooking process. And it should probably cook in a dutch oven with a good supply of moisture. Anyway, I’m going to keep at it until I get it right.

Next weekend I’m going to tackle fish. Stay tuned.

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Posted in dad, family, food, tiki tuesday

Quest For Food

Posted on May 22, 2010 | 7 Comments

My 23 regular readers will no doubt recall that we recently learned that Michael is allergic to both Dairy and Soy products.

Since then, we’ve been keeping a close eye on what little Mr. Mikey eats. And lest we ever let our guard down, Michael himself provides an abundant level of caution, asking whether or not any given food product is disallowed; e.g., hand him a glass of water, and before he takes a sip he’ll ask if it has soy in it. So he knows what to avoid.

While it is probably premature to say with confidence that this dietary shift has completely repaired Michael’s behavior problems, it is safe to say that we’ve noticed a very distinct change in his daily demeanor. The notes that come home from Ms S’s school are far more positive than they have been in weeks past, his patience level has increased quite a bit with everything from sisters to toys to being told “no,” and his disposition has taken a markedly happy turn.

And while we’re relieved to know we’ve nipped a potentially hazardous allergy in the bud and have given Michael’s poor, overworked immune system some much needed relief, our new situation is not entirely joyful.

For now we are faced with overwhelming restrictions.

You may also recall a couple of instances in which I discussed the difficulty we have in putting together Michael’s lunch. Up until recently, our biggest challenge was not having cheese or peanut-based foods as options.

Pfft. A trifle. Now we understand the real meaning of constraints.

I mean, what’s the kid supposed to eat? Where are we supposed to find food for him? Grocery stores cater to the largest percentage of the population, and pay little attention to those unlucky few who suffer from dietary restrictions such as this. Yeah, you can find a lot of gluten-free stuff nowadays, as well as sugar-free and even some non-dairy things like “Rice Dream”. Only, in most cases, the non-Dairy stuff contains soy.
Even things that shouldn’t be dairy or soy contain one or both, to add protein and build up the bulk in foods that would otherwise be flat and non-protein-ish.

In terms of categorization, here’s a rough analysis of what I’ve found at our favorite grocery store:

As we carefully searched the shelves at the store, we discovered that almost down to a one, each of Michael’s most favorite prepared foods were chock full of dairy, soy or both. He just plain old can’t have them any more. All of our former lunch options are gone:

No more Lunchables.
Not exactly food, but...
No more Spaghetti-Os.
Sketti O's
No more Raviolis.
I love these...
No more Kid’s Cuisine.
Michael loves these.
And worst of all, no more Campbell’s Chunky Sirloin Burger Soup!
This cuts to the bone.
The utter despair of it all!

Fortunately, over the last year or so we’ve been doing healthy eating in the house of Michael. So we’ll be applying the same strategy to Michael’s lunch menu that we’ve been doing for our dinner menu: making it ourselves, starting with fresh, whole foods that are as close to their raw, natural states as possible:

This is the surest way to avoid both dairy products and soy ingredients. And I’ll begrudgingly admit it dovetails with our healthy eating plan. This is how the plan is forced upon us, keeping us from falling prey to the temptation of serving Froot Loops and Ice Cream for dinner when inspiration fails. The urgency of cooking healthy is a bit greater now.

Over the next few weeks Michael’s mom and I will be scouring the markets for whole foods, and scanning the internet and other venues for recipes of things we can make, things he won’t be allergic to, things he might actually eat and enjoy.

I have no doubt that Michael will be very happy with his lunch from here on out.

Talk about your roughage!

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Posted in food, frustration, michael

The Cow gets a Pink Slip

Posted on May 5, 2010 | 11 Comments

We have a diagnosis.

Just to recap a bit, you may recall a situation at Michael’s school in which we were concerned about his behavior and were taking steps to help Michael improve.

One of the things his mom and I talked about with his teachers was the possibility of a food allergy. The medical community is well aware of links between food allergies and behavior problems. This was our first course of action, to determine whether Michael’s spurious aggression had an organic root as opposed to a psychological or pathological one.

A few days ago, Michael’s mommy took him to the doctor for a blood draw (he got a trip to McDonald’s for chicken nuggets out of that). Evidently allergy tests these days are done with a blood draw, rather than the skin scratch test. Long story short, if your blood has antibodies that are hanging around ready to go dukes with a particular allergen, the lab test will ferret it out.

And ferret it out they did. Michael’s blood has two very specific antibodies, in fact.

One of them was for milk (and thus all things dairy).

So, there goes milk on the cereal. And ice cream. And cheese – oh, wait; he hates cheese. No big loss there.

He looooooves chocolate milk, though, so we’re going to have quite a time dealing with that. And what to put on his Wheaties in the morning?

Why, of course! Soy milk, right? Right!

Wrong. That other antibody he was carrying around is the one for all things soy.

Between the two, that clears out about ninety five percent of the processed food market. Have you seen how prevalent soy is in everything? Heck, I thought high-fructose corn syrup was ubiquitous; soy has it beat by a mile.

After getting the report from the doctor, I went to the store to find stuff for Michael that didn’t contain milk or soy.

Turns out, they use soy in everything, to bump up protein content and add bulk as well as coloring, a cooking agent and as a “natural” flavor. Sheesh. Good luck finding anything that doesn’t have either milk, soy or both. Even most brands of rice milk contain soy.

I did find some almond milk that is proudly soy free, and he actually likes it. I also found some hemp milk that’s soy-less, though I feel a little wary of pouring that on his frosted flakes. I’m worried that he might get the munchies at Ms S’s midway through the day, or suggest putting on some Led Zeppelin at music time.

Constructing a proper diet for Michael is going to be a challenge, for sure.

But you gotta do what you gotta do.

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Posted in food, michael, parenting

At least he used a bowl.

Posted on April 26, 2010 | 6 Comments

Michael’s mommy is relaxing, going through the Sunday paper in search of valuable coupons and ads for shoe sales. Then, from the kitchen:

Michael: “Mommy! I’m a big boy!” (followed by nearly simultaneous sound of Rice Krispies cascading down the counter on to the floor and milk being spilled out of a small bowl, coating everything on the opposite counter)

Michael, again: “Uh, maybe I’m not a big boy.”

Well, he tried. Gotta give him some credit for an attempt at self-sufficiency.

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Posted in food, inscrutable, michael

Myocardial Monday: Inflammation

Posted on February 15, 2010 | 7 Comments

A few days after Christmas of 2008, Michael’s Mommy suffered a heart attack. By the grace of God, she lives to tell the tale. As a continual reminder of how your diet can affect your body, we here at Being Michael’s Daddy have declared the last Monday of the month to be “Myocardial Monday.” Here we’ll offer information about food and nutrition in hopes that it will help others avoid facing what could be a fatal condition. Yes, I know it’s not the last Monday of the month. I’ve been busy.

Today we’re going to explore a buzzword that seems to be one of the latest health concerns: inflammation.

What is inflammation?

Inflammation is a swell thing.

Actually, in many cases, it isn’t so swell.

Inflammation is your body’s response to injury: It’s sending in the cavalry. White blood cells are sent to an area where there’s an injury in the body. In some cases, you can see or feel the inflammation: sinus problems, arthritis, a welt on the hand, swelling from a bee sting. These white blood cells arrive at the scene, and move in, doing their work in preventing infection and releasing chemicals that fix things up.

So what? A little bump or a stuffy nose. What’s the big deal?

The problem occurs when there are inflammatory actions in blood vessels. When the inside of a blood vessel becomes inflamed, the swelling that occurs impacts the flow of blood through the vessel.

Imagine a busy street downtown mid day. A pot hole appears out of nowhere, and workers are dispatched to fix it up. What are they going to do? Shut down at least one lane of traffic. Now you have a traffic jam. Let’s hope the pothole doesn’t get any bigger, or they’ll have to close down two lanes – or worse – the whole street. And if so, let’s hope that street doesn’t lead to something vital, like, say, your heart. Or your brain. That would be the start of a really bad day.

Yikes, that’s horrible!

Oh, but it gets worse.

The injured areas inside blood vessels tend to snag LDL cholesterol that’s gliding along in the blood. As these little fat globs collect, they oxidize and explode, then build up and calcify, turning into plaque which then gets covered over with a layer of asphalt – err, scar tissue. This alone is enough to completely close off a vessel. And there’s your heart attack, embolism or stroke.

Isn’t there some way to roto-rooter them off?

You wouldn’t want that. If one of these little plaque bombs gets dislodged, it goes floating on down your blood stream in one big clump until it gets to a vessel it can’t squeeze through – which will cause a heart attack, embolism or stroke.

Hold on – ibuprofen reduces inflammation. Can’t I just take that?

For the occasional headache or muscle ache, yes. But not for this. Popping NSAIDs (non-steroidal anti-inflammatories) every day will actually have the opposite effect, as it interferes with your body’s ability to control its inflammatory response, which will ultimately make matters worse.

And it doesn’t stop there.

There are studies that link chronic inflammation with development of cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes, and a whole slew of health problems.

Take a look:

I’m doomed.

Now, now. Let us not abandon hope. I wouldn’t have brought you this far without offering the lifeline.

One of the best things you can do to fight the inflammation is adjust your lifestyle.

Eating the rights foods: Get plenty of Omega 3’s, like those in Salmon and cold water fish, flaxseed and walnuts; fiber in whole grains and fresh fruit; antioxidants found in fresh grapes, blueberries, broccoli and soy products. I’ve discussed Omega 3’s and fiber in past Myocardial Monday posts. I’ll get to the purpose of antioxidants in a future post.

Stay away from sugar, particularly high fructose corn syrup and white refined sugar. Not because they’re so horrible in and of themselves, but because they’re so easily absorbed and bring nothing with them to help the body deal with them.

Sugar? What’s that got to do with inflammation?

Glad you asked. But you’ll have to wait until next time, when I discuss Type II Diabetes, and the horror that is sugar.

Studies indicate that turmeric may prove helpful in preventing buildup of atherosclerosis, or blocked arteries. It lowers LDL and inhibits its oxidation, which is good: oxidized LDL is what sticks to artery walls and causes blockage. By the way, it’s pronounced “TER – mer – ick”, not “TOO – mer – ick”. But whatever.

Inflammation may sound like a fairly innocuous issue, but being aware of it is critical. While it is a normal body process, when it gets out of control it can cause all kinds of problems. Just a few little adjustments can make a huge difference in the length and quality of your life.

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Posted in food, health, Myocardial Monday

Grub Grousing

Posted on February 12, 2010 | 8 Comments

The part of each weekday morning that I dislike the most is, without question, assembling Michael’s lunch. I’ve mentioned this before.

Yesterday’s episode went like this:

Daddy: “Michael, what do you want for lunch?”

Michael: (no response whatsoever)

Daddy: “Sometime today, please.”

Mommy: “How about fish fingers?”

Michael: “Yeah, fish fingers. That sounds good.”

Daddy: “How many?”

Michael: “Five. Five is good.”

Daddy: “Five fish fingers it is.”

So I cooked them a bit to crisp them up, then sealed them in a travel container and packed them up next to another container filled with ketchup, and some cheez-its and grapes.

I figured he’d have a nice little lunch there, and I had successfully survived another morning of getting him ready for school.

Imagine my delight this morning when I went to find his lunchbox (I never know where it’s going to be left from one day to the next) and discovered all five fish fingers intact. Daddy was not pleased.

Daddy: “Michael! I’m not very happy with you! You didn’t eat those fish fingers at all!”

Michael: (no response whatsoever)

I did note that the cheez-its and grapes were gone. Well, he enjoyed that part. And most of the ketchup was gone too. So… he dipped the grapes and cheez-its in ketchup?

Hmmm.

Today he got slices of ham, grapes, pretzels and carrots. I put protein in his lunchbox, but I cannot force him to eat it. I can’t pack peanut butter, even though he loves that, because of the nut allergy there at his school. I can’t pack cheese, because he loathes it. Even when it’s being eaten by someone else, clear across the room. And I can’t just pack a baggie full of Cocoa Puffs because I’m sure someone would eventually report me to DCFS or something.

I can’t wait until next year, and the thought of public school hot lunch saving me from this task. Packing cash for lunch is easy.

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Posted in food, frustration, michael, morning

Fun With Language

Posted on February 6, 2010 | 6 Comments

Michael: “What’s for dinner, daddy?”

Daddy: “Nachos.”

Michael: “Yummy! I love nachos! What are nachos?”

Daddy: “Taco meat, tortilla chips, salsa, other stuff if you like.”

Michael: “No cheese?”

Daddy: “Not for you. I know better than that.”

Michael: “It’s like a taco?”

Daddy: “Basically. It’s a taco in another form. A deconstruction.”

(brief pause)

Michael: “You know, ‘nacho’ is Spanish for ‘taco’.”

Daddy, laughing: “Oh, is that right? It’s Spanish?”

Michael: “Yes. Daddy, I’m really serious about this.”

Daddy: “All righty then.”

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Posted in food, inscrutable, michael

Pizza

Posted on January 20, 2010 | 11 Comments

“I don’t like food, I love it. And if I don’t love it, I don’t swallow.” – Anton Ego, Disney-Pixar’s “Ratatouille”

Continuing the foodie theme we seem to be exploring here at Being Michael’s Daddy, today I present to you – at the request of the illustrious WeaselMomma – my take on pizza.

Note: the simple recipe for pizza dough is at the bottom of the post, in case you wish to skip over my long-winded blathering.

First of all, let it be known that I love food (this should be fairly evident, given my recent proclamation concerning my extensive avoirdupois and antipathy thereof), and I like to cook. I consider myself to be fairly adept in the kitchen, having learned a range of skills over the years. Now I wouldn’t claim to be so tremendously talented as to think I could stand in a contest on the Food Network (my wife and I love the FN show “Chopped”, where they hand the chefs a basket full of truly strange ingredients and expect them to whip up a dish that’s creative and delicious: “Okay, chefs! Please open your baskets. We have sea urchin, whole cloves, the Sunday New York Times, and a bag of glass shards. You have thirty minutes, and the time starts now.”), but I do think I can put my own spin on an existing recipe and have it come out pretty good.

To cook well, I believe you have to really love food. Even if a meal were prepared by a skilled Cordon Bleu chef, it’s easy to tell in the finished product whether the love is there.

Myself, I love a good pizza. Making them as well as eating them.

There were a number of pizza places in the town where I grew up, but only one of them readlly did pizza right, as far as I was concerned.

It was the crust that really did it for me: bready and soft, slightly crisp and well done on the bottom, soft in the middle, and having a lightly crunchy but large and fluffy edge. Since moving away, I found only one place that came close to having that kind of crust.

Nearly every place that makes pizza blows it on the crust: thin and waxy in some cases, floppy and insubstantial in others. Then there are the ones who make a pizza taste like they slapped pepperoni, cheese and spaghetti sauce on a huge Saltine cracker. And don’t get me started on the delivery chains.

In this vast pizza wasteland, I decided the only way to get a decent one was to make it myself.

At its heart, pizza dough is very simple. You really only need four ingredients: flour, water, yeast, salt.

Over the years I’ve perfected the recipe and added a few ingredients, and changed it from a scripted procedure into an artistic expression.

Before you begin, please understand that I let my dough rise for six hours. It takes time… but it makes all the difference. So for dinner at 6:00, I start in at noon.

Step one: the water
It’s important to provide a good foundation for your crust. The water is the thing. Filtered only. Not distilled, just filtered from the icky stuff and bad tastes. Put about four cups into a microwave-safe bowl and zap it on high for about five minutes, to get it to near boiling. Pour back and forth from one bowl to another. This removes nearly all of the chlorine; the heat and the agitation will let the chlorine escape from the water while letting air in.

Pour off all but two cups of water. Add a tablespoon of sugar. This gives the yeast something to nibble on while they’re waiting for the rest of the ingredients.

Step two: the yeast
When the water comes down to 116 degrees, add four and a half teaspoons of active dry yeast.

Let it sit there for seven to ten minutes. This is the “blooming” stage. Some say it’s not necessary, but I think it helps. In my experience, it gets the yeast good and ready to start going to town on the flour.

Step three: the flour and stuff
I use King Arthur White Bread Flour. Bread flour is a finer grain than all-purpose, and has a higher protein content. You can’t beat it for making pizza dough. Dump in about two cups of flour and stir. In truth, I don’t bother measuring anymore; once you’ve done this enough you can go by consistency (in all you’ll probably use about six cups). Now add three healthy pinches of salt, and about two tablespoons of olive oil.

Keep adding and stirring in flour about ½ cup at a time, until it turns into a loose dough ball. Now you’re ready for the real fun.

Step four: Kneading
This is where so-so dough becomes really good dough.

Kneading is the thing that releases the gluten from the wheat, and makes the dough springy. Without kneading, you end up with a big biscuit. Not tasty. At least, not if you’re aiming for pizza.

I like to knead on a silicone mat, because pretty much nothing sticks to it. But any floured board will do, you just gotta keep ahead of the dough so it doesn’t stick to the board.

With the dough ball on the floured board, press it down, fold it over and repeat. That’s really all there is to it. Oh, and put your back in to it. This is how I justify eating four slices instead of just three; I figure I’ve already burned off the calories just in the kneading.

I like to go for about ten minutes of this, pressing, folding, stretching, punching. Trust me: all that violence is therapeutic. Get your kids involved. It’ll keep them from punching each other for a little while.

Toss flour on to it from time to time to keep it from sticking. Be secure in the fact that you’ll go through quite a bit of added flour just doing this part.

After ten minutes, let the dough rest for a bit. You’ll be able to finish it off in round two.

While you’re waiting, wash out the mixing bowl you made the dough in. You’ll need it for the rising process.

With the bowl rinsed and dried, get back to beating that dough to a pulp kneading, for another five minutes or so.

Once it’s fully kneaded, form it into a ball, coat it well with olive oil spray (it comes in a handy spray can these days – better living through science!) and plop it in the bowl. Cover the bowl with a damp towel and let it sit on the counter for four hours.

After four hours, lift the towel and punch it down once. Replace the towel. After two more hours, the dough is ready to use. It’ll make about five 12” pizzas.

To form the crust, grab a baseball-sized wad of the dough and form it into a ball. Coat it with flour so it doesn’t stick to everything. Put it on a flour-coated rolling board and roll it flat and stretch it out some.

You can toss if you like (that’s what I do) or you can just roll it out until it’s the size you like. Keep in mind that tossing is nicer for making that large, fluffy crust edge. You can roll it out thick or thin, it’s up to you.

Essentials
Another thing I like to use is a pizza peel. I have two of them; that way I can be working on one and scooting pies out of the oven with the other. It’s also handy to have a handle on your rolling board, since while you’re putting toppings on your pizza you want to give it the shake test to be sure it hasn’t stuck to the board; otherwise getting it off the board and into the oven is going to be a very frustrating adventure. Just give it a few back and forth shakes with each topping addition; the pizza should slide back and forth. If it doesn’t, carefully lift up one corner and toss a little bit of flour underneath. Repeat until it does slide. Keep doing that test until you’re ready to put the pizza in the oven.

The last essential for making pizzas is a good pizza stone. I have two of those as well. The best pizzas are baked hot and fast (no wisecracks, NukeDad), and to keep the heat up when you’re opening the oven door constantly there needs to be a decent thermal mass in the oven. Pizza stones are made for this. They’re large stone disks you can get at decent kitchen supply stores. They can pretty much live in your oven full time.

About half an hour before you intend to bake your first pie, set the oven to 475. It needs to take a good long time to reach full heat and get those pizza stones good and hot through and through.

Bake time for the average pie is about 8 minutes at 475. Your mileage may vary.

Toppings
I have not yet perfected my own sauce (though I did get a very good recipe from Darrin at Dad’s Dish), but the best sauce I’ve been able to find commercially is Contadina (in a can, not the squeeze bottle). Every time I find it on sale somewhere I snap up six or eight cans. It’s just the right level of sweet and savory for my taste.

Fresh mozzarella is the best, but it’s really hard to shred. If you can deal with big cheese wads on your pizza (making a Margherita pizza is done best this way), great – go for the fresh stuff. If you can find a way to dry it out sufficiently to make it shreddable without turning into a mass of cheese mache’, or if you don’t mind spending half your day cutting the cheese into little tiny individual strips, then good on you. Other than that, you can get by with the pre-shredded mozzarella in a bag at the store.

Beyond that, it’s all up to you. I like olives, pepperoni and green pepper myself. My wife and I have been happy with the Hormel turkey pepperoni, believe it or not. Don’t get me wrong: I don’t like turkey anywhere but on Thanksgiving and maybe as smoked sliced sandwich meat. Ground turkey is an abomination and has no place in my house. But the turkey pepperoni is actually pretty dang good, and a healthier substitute for the regular stuff.

When you pull the pie out, let it cool for about 90 seconds before you cut! Let the heat redistribute, and the cheese have a chance to firm up just a smidge, otherwise you’ll have naked crust and a pile of boiling hot toppings in your lap at first bite.

Bon Appétit, everyone!

———————————-

The basic recipe:
Put two cups of lukewarm water into a bowl.
Add one tablespoon of sugar, stir.
Sprinkle with four and a half teaspoons of active dry yeast, wait seven minutes.
Stir in two cups of flour.
Add three pinches of salt, and two tablespoons of olive oil.
Stir, and add two to three cups of flour.
Turn out onto a floured board and knead for ten minutes, adding flour as needed to keep it from sticking.
Let dough rest for two minutes.
Continue kneading for five minutes.
Form into a ball, spray with olive oil, place in bowl, cover with damp towel.
Let rise four hours.
Punch down.
Let rise two hours.
At this point, the dough is ready to be rolled, stretched and/or tossed into pizza crusts. With toppings added, bake at 475 degrees for eight minutes.

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Posted in food

What’s Cooking?

Posted on January 17, 2010 | 3 Comments

Today we have an article up over at Discovering Dad, about the benefits of having your kids help with the cooking.

Head on over there and take a look.

I read recently somewhere (forgive me for excluding the citation, I really don’t recall where it was I read it) about a woman who came up with the brilliant idea of pulling out the dishwasher rack and putting a mixing bowl there for her small daughter to stir. The height was exactly right for her, and if there was any slop out, the mess was contained and taken care of during the next dishwasher run.

Michael insists upon helping me every time I cook. “Can I make with you, daddy?” he’ll ask.

At one point I considered it a bother – it took extra time and effort to slow down enough to show them what to do and clean up after them.

But it makes them so happy. It’s such a little investment to make your kid really happy to do something grown-up, and to just spend time with you.

I’m really looking forward to the time when he (and/or one of his sisters) takes over on the pizza-making chore. Right now I end up eating last, and usually by myself. I smile to think that there will come a day when I can be relaxing outside on the deck in the warm evening, chatting with my wife and a few friends, and the kids will bring our pizza out to us. Maybe along with a couple of glasses of a 2003 Chianti.

Ah, those will be good days. Worth putting in the investment now.

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Posted in food, guest post

The First Day

Posted on January 11, 2010 | 9 Comments

I had a big to-do list this last weekend. I had every intention of taking down all of the Christmas decorations and packing them up. My wife and I had some shopping to do, as we both had gift cards on the verge of expiration. I had intended to make pizza dough, which requires getting an early start. I had a blog post that I was late putting up. Lots to do.

And as I lay there, staring up at the ceiling of room 43 in the emergency department of the hospital, I thought about how at this point I’d be happy just to be home.

My wife was right next to me, holding my hand, being soothing, but occasionally reminding me how much I’d scared her earlier.

It all began the week before. I’d called my doctor to schedule an appointment to follow up on my blood pressure medication. While I talked with him, I brought up another unpleasant medical issue, one that a lot of men face when they start getting on in years. While I did not relish the thought of the exam that would be necessary, I did hold out hope for a long term solution.

At the end of my exam my doctor prescribed a new medication.

“It’s an alpha blocker. Should help with your blood pressure too,” he said, cheerily. That’s good news, I thought. Anything that helps get my blood pressure down sounds good to me. Before I left he gave me the usual admonition to get out there and exercise, and check into the Mediterranean Diet for help with my nutritional intake. He’s very encouraging when it comes to being healthy, starting with diet and exercise. Gotta like that approach.

My wife picked up my new medicine on Friday. It’s a cute little periwinkle pill. “It might make him sleepy,” the pharmacist said, “so be sure he takes it at night before bed time.”

Sleepy. I always prefer sleepy when it’s bed time. They go together well.

After taking the aforementioned little periwinkle pill and climbing in to bed, I relaxed… but soon noticed that I wasn’t all that sleepy. In fact, my heart was pounding a little.

But I eventually drifted off, and slept well.

My wife and I woke at nearly seven-thirty Saturday morning. I felt great.

“We slept in!” My wife observed happily. “To some, seven-thirty is the crack of dawn. For us, it’s sleeping in,” she went on. We both laughed at the thought.

Our conversation turned to other topics, and I got up to use the bathroom. I was standing there, listening to my wife’s thoughts about the academic situation we’re facing with one of our teenagers, when suddenly things changed.

The world started getting dark. It was as if someone were lowering the shades on my eyes.

My heart gave a couple of plaintive skips, usually a precursor to arrhythmia.

“Oh, shoot,” I said. ”This isn’t good.” The thought of “I need to sit down” had almost finished crossing my mind…

Dreaming: something urgent and incomprehensible…

Now I hear a loud snore, one that I recognize as my own.

My wife is screaming. “I’m calling 9-1-1! Tom! Can you hear me?”

I realize that I’m waking up, but I’m not in bed. There is lots of pain. I am curled up against the bathtub, staring at the Easter Island Tiki head planter that’s now lying in the tub, along with every other tropical-themed knick-knack we had set up along the edge of the tub.

“Wha?” I slur.

“YOU PASSED OUT! I’M CALLING 9-1-1!”

“I did? Why? Where am I?” Stupid question, and so cliché. But honestly, I couldn’t be sure of much at the moment.

Little by little I did regain my faculties and with her help clambered to my feet. She helped me out of the bathroom and to the bed.

“We’re going to the hospital. Let me get S up so she can take care of Michael,” she said. While she was gone I reconstructed what must have happened: when I stood up to go to the bathroom, I must have fainted.

Ladies and gentlemen, this guy does not faint. I have never fainted in my life. I have been through three births and two weddings. My entryway into sleep has always been one of choice and comfort.

So… off to the hospital we go. My wife is concerned that there may be more going on that just a reaction to the medication, and because I’d struck my head a good one, she was more than a little worried that I might have a brain bleed or something.

The scans and tests and everything came back fine; no clots, no brain bleeds, no abnormal med levels, normal sinus heart rhythm, all that. Doc handed down a diagnosis of “vasovagal syncope” – which is a fancy way of saying that I fainted. He added something else that was news to me: when you urinate, your blood pressure drops. In my case, it was fast and severe – enough for me to lose consciousness.

Didn’t know that. Would have been nice to have read that on the medication fact sheet, had that little tidbit been there.

I had plenty of time to ruminate while we waited for the “all clear to leave.”

I’ve been a guest of this hospital too many times. For heart arrhythmia episodes, back surgeries, and now this. I shouldn’t be a frequent flyer here, I’m only 46. Inside I still feel like a dorky kid, one who’s been around for a few years.

But most of the time my body feels like that of an old man: tired, pale, weak. I remind myself of a doddering codger, ashen grey and scarcely able to stand, let alone walk.

I know it shouldn’t be this way.

And I know that the one thing that contributes to all of these problems, and so many others, is something I have full control over: my weight.

I am too fat.

It’s that simple.

And I have had enough of it.

What makes it worse is that I know better. My wife had a heart attack just a little over a year ago, but apparently I haven’t absorbed that fact deeply enough to truly change my own behavior, which largely consists of too much junk food and not enough healthy; too much sitting and not enough moving.

It is up to me to change. I have to, because my wife and kids need me. I have the will, and I have the motivation right now. I pray to God that it’ll stick this time.

That old saying “Today is the first day of the rest of your life” always bugged me. But it’s suitable, and I’ll claim it. Today is the first day of turning the ship around, heading toward “health” and ordering all engines full.

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