food

Take Your Own

It’s National Brown Bag-It Day. For you young people, that means what you carry your home-made lunch in, to where ever you are going. We used brown bags before metal lunch boxes/pails and before zippered insulated plastic cooler bags. I still send my husband to work with one on occasion. Sorry, I’m old school. And yes, he is expected to bring the bag back home because it has handles, is the perfect size and can be reused.

What does one put in a brown bag. Well, when I was in grade school, there were thin sandwiches, bags of chips, an apple, and home-made cookies. Wait! Think about how many carbs there were in that. I guess a growing child could handle them at the time as we still played outside and didn’t have video games to veg in front of.

I recently visited two different people close to me in the hospital. One is a diabetic and when the first, liquids only, meal arrived, we just stared at the tray which held juice, Jello, ice cream, and milk. He drank the milk. The sugary things he left where they were. It took a day or so before he could get a meal that wasn’t a load of carbs. One young lady was very helpful in seeing he got what he could eat. His sister came to visit too. She had a bag with her, unfortunately not brown. It held radishes, cooked green beans and sushi made with no rice, plus cashews for dessert. His eyes lit up. I have to admit, I wouldn’t have thought to bring that type of meal, but I would have enjoyed eating it.

The second person was in a different hospital, but the meal she got wasn’t much different; loaded with carbs, salt, and sugar. If you think about what I was taught as a young person and the five food groups, the meal fit it to a tee. I think with all the new facts about nutrition and the overweight problems of Americans, the five food groups pyramid needs a major overhaul and so do hospital menus.

The moral of the story; no matter where you go, making your own lunch to fit your own dietary needs is probably a good idea. I’ll give you a break, forget the brown bag and use one of those nice insulated mini-totes made especially for the purpose.

05/25/2017 0

“They were awful!”

It’s National Pizza Party Day. Really? I know a family that has pizza every Friday night for dinner. Does that make every Friday night a party? I doubt it. Who needs a party to order pizza. We probably have it three times a month, and it’s usually on a night I have been “busy” doing something else instead of making dinner for my hubby who still works lots of hours. The definition of busy could be anything from sewing, writing my blog, shopping or having lunch with the girls.

I have heard that pizza isn’t really Italian, but the National Day of calendar gives facts that says it is. It also says the original pizza used only mozzarella cheese, mainly the highest quality buffalo mozzarella variant which was produced in the surroundings of Naples, Italy. The first United States pizza establishment opened in 1905 in New York’s Little Italy. I guess we’ll give the Italians credit for pizza without argument.

It was estimated that the annual production of pizza cheese in the United States in 1997 was 2 billion pounds. That’s one heck of a lot of cheese. How much of that was consumed at your house?

I was the youngest of four girls, so from 7th through 12th grade, I lived at home with just my parents. I’m a people person so on many Saturday nights there were a few extra girls overnight. I liked to eat even then, so for a snack I would make a Chef Boy-ar-dee Pizza from a box. There was a package of dough mix that only needed water added, a can of sauce, and a package of very dry parmesan like cheese. I would add pepperoni or mushrooms sometimes. In my memory it seems like we usually ate most of it. I now have lunch about once a month with one of the girls involved. She admitted to me one day, “Remember those pizzas you used to make. They were awful, but you liked them so we all ate it.” I wish you could have seen the look on her face when she told me that. It appeared she could still taste how awful they were. We laughed and talked about what good memories those pajama parties left us with.

Next time you have pizza, don’t just have it for supper. Call some friends, get out the cards or a board game, and turn it into a party. Oh, and by all means, order a good one with gooey thick hot cheese and the toppings of your choice.

05/19/2017 0

Add Some Nuts

Today is National Walnut Day. I would guess, though I didn’t look it up, that walnuts are one of the most consumed nuts alongside the almond. Walnuts make a great addition to cookies, cakes, breads, and all by themselves are a protein filled healthy snack. What would trail mix be without them.

One of my family’s treats at Christmas time when I was little, was a full dish of assorted nuts in the shell. We had two crackers and four meat picks. The four of us girls would eat the filberts first, then the almonds, then the walnuts. We would see if we could crack the walnut-shell open in order to get a complete half. Somehow they tasted better if they weren’t broken. How innocent the mind of a young person is to believe that. (I miss those days.)

Also at Christmas time, we gave home-made Mrs. Clause Fudge and date nut bread to the milkman, the paper boy, the post office employees, the Charlie Chip man, our teachers, and friends. Both of these contained walnuts. There wasn’t the concern then about nut allergies that there is now. To this day when I make date nut bread, I give half of it away so I don’t eat all of it because there is nothing better hot or cold, with lots of butter on it, especially if the dates are left in bite size chunks. Now my mouth is watering.

I don’t know too many cookies that aren’t better with a handful of chopped walnuts thrown in the dough. And let’s not forget maple walnut ice cream; another one of my favorites. Can you tell I like food. It’s rough being one of those people who lives to eat and likes everything, well most everything.

Whatever your plans for the day, may I suggest you take a resealable sandwich bag full of walnuts with you. They are a much more healthy snack than that sugar filled coffee you pay five dollars for.

05/17/2017 0

Little Piggies

It’s National Pigs in a Blanket Day. My thoughts went to sausage links wrapped in pancakes that I served repeatedly when I worked at a Denny’s. Then I looked at the picture provided and saw mini-hotdogs wrapped in pastry. My husband likes both items; I don’t care for either one.

I know I have told you in the past that I eat most anything. For whatever reason I have never liked breakfast sausage. I have tried to figure out which spice it is that turns me off, to no avail. Generally nobody knows of my dislike, or comments, because when you go out for breakfast you can always order bacon or ham instead. That works for me.

We often go out to breakfast. I order a vegetable omelet, with artichokes if they have them, and my husband orders sausage patties, eggs over easy and pancakes. He puts the sausage on top of the pancakes, the eggs on top of both, covers it with pepper and maple syrup then breaks the yolks before he starts eating. I don’t mind my food touching, or the flavors blended, but the pepper mixed with the syrup keeps me from stealing bites.

At a party, my husband goes for the mini-hotdogs first, wrapped in pastry or just floating in bar-b-q sauce. I bypass them and go for the chips. Potato chips are one of those things I rarely buy. Too dangerous to have in the house. They disappear very rapidly, then I wonder, just for a second, why I never lose any weight.

I guess the visual attached to some food names depends on where you live and what you like to eat. Did you know that in England, sausages are called bangers? Bangers in a blanket doesn’t sound quite the same. Where ever you live and what ever connotation Pigs in a Blanket has for you, if you like them, I hope you have some soon.

04/24/2017 0

No Thank You

It’s National Lima Bean Respect Day. In my opinion, they need a day to demand respect. I eat most anything, but lima beans are at the bottom of my list, and I avoid them if possible. They are that childhood vegetable that would keep me sitting at the table for hours because I wouldn’t eat just three.

According to the National Day of Calendar, lima beans are an excellent source of protein, iron, magnesium, potassium and zinc. They can increase energy levels by helping to restore more iron. Most of us tried them as a child and didn’t like them. They advise it’s time to give them a second chance as adults. They can be delicious in soups, stews, salads, casseroles, by themselves or mixed with other vegetables.

I have to admit, as a child, I didn’t like the texture of lima beans as I chewed them. They were gritty and made my teeth squeak. Now I will eat them in soup or a package of mixed vegetables and pretend they aren’t there. If they are such a healthy food, maybe I should give them a real chance to change my opinion by trying them with nothing else, and an open mind. Well, maybe not. Some parts of me haven’t matured enough to go that route.

It just hit me, if there is a day of respect for them, I must not be the only one that doesn’t like them. That makes me feel better. If you like lima beans I’ll give my respect to you.

04/20/2017 0

Happy St. Patrick’s Day

It’s National Corned Beef and Cabbage Day. And, it’s St. Patrick’s Day, the one day of the year everyone is Irish. As a non-Catholic, I assumed corned beef and cabbage was an Irish dish. Wrong. According to the National Day of Calendar it is an American dish. The Irish used a bacon/pork meat that got changed to beef in America in the mid-1800’s when they immigrated. I’m not too concerned about who decided the meat and vegetable went together, I’m just glad they did. I also like to swap out the cabbage for sauerkraut. We have already had it for dinner twice this week. I take advantage of corned beef being on sale and put a couple in the freezer for later in the year.

My father died on St. Patrick’s Day in 1992. Seems like yesterday and I still want to call him when I have news to share. I really didn’t know my father all that well. He was one of those silent types and he worked the evening shift at a local manufacturing plant. When I was a youngster, one didn’t talk about the fact their father was an alcoholic. My sisters and I are all over 60 now and we are talking more about our growing-up years. One sister just told me that Dad was very active in AA and sometimes when he went to work, the boss would come to him and send him to help another employee with a drinking problem, on the clock. When Dad died, we got a very nice note from a man who I went to school with. It said he too was an alcoholic and he always went to the AA meetings my father went to in order to hear him speak. I wish I had known that side of my father. It is a comfort to know he helped other people. In his later years, he had an antique shop. The kitchen table was often surrounded by people with coffee cups in hand, and the topic was how to keep from drinking that day.

I generally write this blog in my pajamas. Today when I get dressed, I will put on my green, maybe even call my old boss and take her out for corned beef and cabbage, but I’ll be thinking of my father, pictured above. The “stuff” hanging on the kitchen cupboards are antique kitchen implements. You couldn’t sneak in one of those cupboards for any reason. The name of his shop was the Mousetrap Antiques.

03/17/2017 1

Sue Spitulnik

Writing, Sewing, Travel, and Thoughts

Category