So, I’m browsing through news stories and skimmed over this one, nearly dismissing it before the real story sank in:

American Fresh Foods has announced that a truck loaded with 14,800 pounds of ground beef, some of it possibly infected with E. coli O157:H7, was stolen last Thursday. People have been advised to refrain from buying ground beef from dubious vendors. The refrigerated truck had been parked in the company’s car park when it was stolen.

That’s right, the story isn’t that some stupid criminal made off with a truck loaded with meat instead of, say, an Armored Car.

Nope, the story is that meat which might be contaminated with E. coli was loaded on a truck and left sitting around in the parking lot.

No wonder we keep having these damn food recalls, if that’s how food manufacturers handle their products. Sheesh!

So be careful, kiddies, next time you stop to buy your ground beef from the back of some guy’s pickup truck in the parking lot outside of Wal-Mart, OK?

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Since Lisa asked, here’s my stuffing recipe. (Pay attention, Jim: it’s not that hard to make, and it’s SO much better than Stovetop!)

If you don’t have time to make your cornbread ahead of time, the stuffing still tastes good with freshly-baked stuff but will be a bit more mushy. Also, keep in mind this is stuffing: you put it in the bird, not in a pan next to the bird. Yes, I know a lot of people worry about food safety when the stuffing’s cooked inside. The solution’s pretty simple: check the stuffing’s temperature along with the bird’s. Duh.

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To brine or not to brine? That’s the topic among all of my foodie friends this week, and when it comes to cooking turkey, everyone’s got an opinion on the way it ought to be done. Only one other Thanksgiving dish is as hotly debated: the stuffing.

In our house, since I cook Thanksgiving dinner pretty much solo, I get to make the decisions: we brine. Also, there is only one kind of stuffing: the Southern cornbread type. The rest is actually dressing, and as far as I’m concerned you can keep it.

But back to the brining thing: this year, since we aren’t inviting company to join us, we’d hoped to get a small turkey. Quite a bit of other folks seemed to have had the same idea, judging by the relatively meager supply of gargantuan-sized birds left at the grocery store. Maybe the high cost of gasoline is keeping more folks home-bound to enjoy a simple holiday like we’re planning?

So here I am with an 18-pound turkey and only three mouths to feed. (My daughter is still at her father’s.) Even as I was hauling that bird into my shopping cart, my mind was already on what to do with all the leftovers: turkey and white bean soup, turkey hotpot, turkey tettrazini, turkey sandwiches, turkey salad… you get the idea.

I have a kitchen-sized trash can that spends 11 months and 28 days of the year holding out-of-season clothing. Come this time of year, it actually gets used for the purpose that led me to buy the thing: as a container in which to brine our turkey. I gave it a good scrub last night — you can never be too careful, after all — and filled it with brine before wrestling the frozen bird into the bath where it’ll sit defrosting (hopefully) in our spare fridge until Thursday.

Meanwhile, I figured it was time to clean out last Thanksgiving’s leftovers from the freezer. That’s right: I had some year-old turkey because last year we wound up with an 18-pounder and only 5 mouths to feed. As far as my cats are concerned, it’s already Christmas: they gnawed on turkey all morning and are now passed out in sunny spots around the house.

Then I made cornbread for our stuffing.

To Yankees, the very thought of making cornbread and leaving it out to dry for three entire days before making stuffing out of it is utterly appalling. That’s OK with me: I’m pretty grossed out by that slop some people eat that has sausage or oysters (or, like my husband’s grandmother’s recipe, with ground beef, macaroni and rice!) in it. Stuffing — true stuffing — requires only a handful of ingredients. Plus butter. Lots of butter.

In fact, it’s the smell of celery and onion simmering in butter with just the right amount of sage that signals the arrival of the holidays in our house. If I could capture that scent in an air freshener, I’d be spraying the place religiously come mid-November just to get us into the spirit of the season.

As for pumpkin pie? We don’t do it. Don’t get me wrong, I love the stuff. I just know better than to make a pie because I’ll wind up being the one waking up at 2 o’clock in the morning to have “just one more nibble” which eventually turns into a small slice. Then a bigger one. Then half the pie. But, just like the other smells that remind me of the holiday, it wouldn’t be Thanksgiving without the warm scent of pumpkin filling the house. So this year I’m making my husband’s favorite: Pumpkin Dump Cake, which is a bit too rich for my tastes.

Mashed potatoes? You betcha. Gravy? Of course.

Cranberries? Well, that’s where we never, ever agree. He likes the smooth cranberry gel that still plops out of the can still bearing ridges. I like a homemade cranberry relish with orange peel and a bit of a bite. My son won’t touch either, at least not until the day after Thanksgiving when I slip cranberry sauce into his leftover turkey sandwich.

As for the other side dishes, well, that’s where I run out of ideas. When my daughter’s here, green bean casserole is a must, but the rest of us don’t like it. Since she’s at her father’s this year, none of us have to choke down a couple of spoonfuls and pretend to enjoy it.

What’s your Thanksgiving meal like?

Have you heard of the 100 Mile diet? The idea is to eat only locally grown foods, putting an end to the North American practice of shipping foods an average of 1,500 miles (and twice that if you’re a fan of pineapple). Locavores, as they call themselves, point to all of the pollution and global warming caused by such shipping practices.

I do my best to patronize local stores — instead of chain retailers — whenever possible. But when it comes to buying food? I’m not so sure.

See, I live in a rather small town. Our Farmer’s Market runs from June to October, and due to the climate precious little grows around here the rest of the year. Sure, Kansas City’s within the 100-mile radius and there’s a Farmer’s Market going on there year-round. But just how much good am I really doing the environment if I — someone who drives less than 20 miles in any given week — fire up the mini-van to make a weekly produce run?

Then there’s that whole coffee issue. We don’t grow coffee in Kansas, which means I’d have to give up my one daily, mostly guilt-free indulgence. That’s so wrong in so many ways, not the least of which can be attributed to the violence I’d most likely inflict on my fellow humans were I deprived of my morning java. And what about salt? I can’t think of a single place in Kansas to which that stuff is local. Same goes for pepper.

So what would I get?

Beef. We’ve got plenty of cows around here. Why, there’s a herd of them not a quarter-mile from my home, a fact of which I’m poignantly aware whenever the wind blows in a certain direction. Milk, cheese, burgers, steaks, prime rib… I’d never have a problem finding those. Eggs, either. There’s a woman about two miles away who’s known as the “Egg Lady” because she provides them to many of our local stores. Sooner or later, I’m pretty certain I could score a chicken (dead and plucked, please) off of her, too. And of course, we’ve got plenty of pigs in these parts, too. Mmmm… bacon.

In other words, from November to May I’d be essentially following an Atkins diet, gorging on all sorts of high-fat, cardio-clogging goodness through the colder months, with nary a fresh green or fruit gracing my plate until sometime mid-Spring. My husband would love it. I know: that’s almost identical to how we ate when we first got married, and I’ve got the extra tonnage to show for it, too.

So to the Locovores I say, How about this for an environmentally-friendly diet: take all that time you spend hunting and gathering locally-grown food, along with the extra expenses involved, and channel them into writing your Congressman, showing up at election time, volunteering in public schools to talk about global warming and lobbying the Grocer’s Association to use ethanol in its shipping vehicles instead of burning fossil fuels.

Then have a macadamia nut cookie and pat yourself on the back for keeping some poor Hawaiian employed.

Just last month, I raced to buy a copy of the cookbook by Jessica Seinfeld (yes, Jerry’s wife) that’s aimed at Moms looking to sneak more fruits and veggies into their kids’ diets while eliminating the health-hazards of fats, sugars and other Harmful Foods.

Jerry himself is such a proponent of his wife’s healthier-than-thou book that he went on Letterman to defend her against claims of plagiarism and touted her efforts to ensure their kids’ dietary health.

So, imagine my surprise when the Big-Eyed Boy came racing up to me to draw my attention to a McDonald’s commercial featuring Jerry Seinfeld urging kids, via his Bee Movie character, to buy the fast-food chain’s deep-fried “chicken” nuggets and greasy burgers.

Somehow, I feel like I just got stung.

Back in the 70s when I was a kid growing up in Northern California, it wasn’t uncommon to encounter people who claimed to be vegetarians. What was unusual was meeting one who wasn’t fugly beyond belief.

In addition to espousing meat-free diets, the vegetarians I knew also seemed to believe in a soap-free, razor-free, comb-free, deodorant-free, fashion-free existence in which they sulked odoriferously around in flannel shirts, bell bottom jeans and sandals, their greasy hair swinging all over the place.

Hardly the kind who’d look good on a poster for a meat-free existence.

No doubt that’s why the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) insists on using scantily clad blondes for its advertisements, Pam Anderson being the most well-known example. The problem with using Pam to advertise vegetarianism as a cruelty-free lifestyle is the fact that the woman has so darn many animal-tested chemicals in and on (and comprising) her body. Besides, she’s getting old.

Now PETA’s going after a younger generation with stars like Alicia Silverstone and Sophie Monk, both of whom have posed nude for the cause. So tell me, are either likely to make you switch to being a vegetarian, or should we just thank PETA for the heaping help of eye candy to go along with our burgers?

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It’s official: autumn is here. I know this not by the date on the calendar, but because I was cold enough this morning to finally turn on our heater. Considering the amount of rainy, cool days we’ve had this past week, I probably should’ve switched the thing on before now, but I just can’t make myself turn on the heat until the A/C has been off for a solid seven days.

Another sure sign that it’s autumn: my crock pot has been allowed back inside the house.

Yes, it sounds crazy to some, but during the summer I use my crock pot in the garage. We’ve got an old freezer in one corner away from the automotive supplies and old cans of paint, and during the warm months that’s where my crock pot does all of its cooking. That keeps the heat out of the house, which is always a plus given the high cost of running the A/C, but it also keeps all of the yummy smells out, too. Now that it’s cool, though, my crock pot — and its delicious aromas — are back indoors.

Now that my migraine is gone — hooray! — I’m actually in the mood to do some serious cooking. I think it has something to do with the weather: it’s only 59 F outside, and the rain is pouring down. Definitely one of those perfect “soup commercial” days, although with homeschool and housekeeping to catch up on from my migraine-induced downtime, my schedule’s too hectic to nurse something along on the stove.

So I’ve spent the last half hour browsing through crock pot recipes at MomsWhoThink.com. They have over a thousand recipes for slow-cookers and crock pots organized into broad categories like “Appetizers” or “Crock Pot Beef”.

I’ve got an overabundance of chicken in our freezer right now, thanks to the combination of a sale at the Commissary and a husband who went grocery shopping after skipping lunch. So I’ve been checking out their “Crock Pot Chicken” category and randomly clicking on pages in search of the perfect recipe.

The recipe for Crock Pot Chicken Stew with Basil Dumplings caught my eye, particularly since I have one basil plant in the garden that somehow survived this long and needs to be used. (Sorry I can’t direct you to it; the site doesn’t have permalinks to individual recipes.)

Now, of course, my kitchen is filled with yummy smells and I’ve got the pleasure of knowing that my last chore for the day — making dinner — is already out of the way. Which is wonderful, really, except that it smells so darned good that my stomach’s going to be rumbling all day.

The USDA has announced the 5th largest recall of tainted beef in history, totaling 21.7 million pounds. The target this time? Pre-made hamburger patties packaged by Topps Meat Company. The patties are believed tainted with E. coli bacteria.

Inspectors found that Topps didn’t handle the meat properly: they mixed day-old meat held onto at the end of a product run with fresh meat on the following day, which violates safety standards.

Unfortunately, the recall is likely to have come too late. Consumption patterns cited by the company leads Topps to believe the majority of the beef products have already been consumed. Since this is a frozen product, the USDA urges consumers to look through their freezers for any of the tainted products and throw them out.

Frankly, outside of the fast-food industry, I’ve never understood why anyone would purchase a pre-fab hamburger patty in the first place. Tossing a machine-issued, disc shaped pile of meat on fire doesn’t make you any more of a BBQ King (or Queen) than the guy at McDonald’s, even if you’re standing in a fancy outdoor kitchen instead of wearing a little paper hat.

An all-you-can-eat crab buffet in one shell. Nice.

You know by now that I have a love-hate relationship with all things Anthony Bourdain, including No Reservations show. I love the guy, except when I don’t.

The times when I love his work is when he’s doing what he does best: haunting small out-of-the-way places, talking with locals, treading the unbeaten path. Sometimes the discrepancy between his voice-over commentary and the actual expression on his face as he tries, say, wiggly bean gel, are hilarious.

Other times, though, I can’t help feeling the show is becoming increasingly self-indulgent. Take, for example, the NYC episode during which viewers were treated to five long minutes of watching a spandex-clad Tony Bourdain desperately try to swing on a trapeze while looking oddly like one of those leggy insects that darts about the surface of stagnant pools. Five minutes. Five very long minutes. And why? No reason in particular: he just wanted to do it. M’kay.

Aside from lulls, I do like that the Travel Channel gives him such leeway to choose his destination and itinerary. Lately, in fact, they’ve been soliciting viewers for suggestions: perhaps in an effort to balance out Bourdain’s fascination with all things Asian.

Personally, I’d like to see him do a show in Trinidad. Considering that Bourdain retreats to the Carribbean for a break in his increasingly busy life, he might be a bit hesitant to turn his playground into paid work but I hope not.

Oh, I don’t want to see him do the tourist-y stuff at Carnival, poked by Jab Jab’s pitchfork or buried in Dame Lorraine’s ample cleavage. That’s not Bourdain’s style, anyway.

But I would love to see him explore the island’s eclectic cuisine. With Trinidad’s history of Spansh conquest and its conflicts with the Carib and Arawak tribes, one would expect a cuisine bearing heavy European influences. One would be wrong, though. The island has actually — since its failed cocoa crop in the early 1700s — become a “melting pot” for Indian, Chinese and African migrants. Sure, there are plenty of Spanish dishes to be had — but, after all, isn’t Spanish cuisine the “new thing” in food trends these days? They’re rivaled by the island’s Indian and Carib cooking, and the fusion of the various influences has created its own very special, very different style, too.

Besides which, I can’t help but thinking that if Bourdain wants to continue with the self-indulgent episodes, what better way than by extending his annual Carribean vacations by another week to do some paid work. I, for one, would love to see him explore Trinidad’s famous bat caves — where he’d look quite at home in that black spandex bodysuit from his trapeze-swinging episode.

I remember the first time I stumbled across Anthony Bourdain’s show, “No Reservations”, on the Travel Channel. I was in bed, nursing a bad cold with a home remedy that involves chasing shots of NyQuil with a cold martini and a bowl full of green chile soup. (Don’t knock it: it works wonders for clearing the sinuses!)

I’d spent most of the day thumbing the remote in search of something — anything — that could keep my attention diverted from the phlegm rattling around in my chest, the build up of snot that made my head feel like it was going to explode, the sweaty fever that kept me half-delirious most of the time (although, it is possible that the martinis had something to do with that state).

After realizing that I couldn’t take one more “very special episode” of the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air on Nick at Night, I jammed the remote toward the TV and found myself listening to a man who looked very much like an unholy cross between Lou Reed and Joey Ramone. He was getting an arm tat from a Samoan man, right there at a massive dining table surrounded by jungle foliage and flying insects with stingers as large as the needle piercing his skin.

Frankly, I had no idea if he was a byproduct of my delirium or not but, what the heck, it was entertaining. So I kept watching.

As it turns out, that night was a Bourdain-a-thon: five episodes, back-to-back of a show featuring a guy who — as it became quickly apparent — had a foolhardy desire to seek out strange foods and even stranger experiences. “No Reservations,” I quickly realized, meant no compunction about eating, say, raw liver at a roadside restaurant that had never heard of sanitation inspections, much less commercial refrigeration.

I was hooked.

A few days later, when I’d returned to my senses, I ordered Bourdain’s book, “Kitchen Confidential“, in which he exposes some of the seamier side of the restaurant business: the criminal derelicts who whip out Michelin star-rated food in between bouts of sex with waitrons in walk-in coolers, the testosterone-fueled scene behind the kitchen door where hungover cooks view oozing blisters and gaping knife wounds on their hands as signs of prowess.

Before long, I was making a point to spend my Monday evenings watching Bourdain’s show. It became a ritual around the Venomous Household: get the Big-Eyed Boy bathed and in bed, grab a martini, settle down on the sofa for the culinary TV equivalent of reading Hunter S. Thompson. Fun stuff.

Unfortunately, as with every good thing on television — and with every television personality whose primary claim to fame is, indeed, their personality — Bourdain has lately become more of a product than anything else. Why, just the other evening I tuned in again to watch an episode in which he toured Shanghai, China. I’d looked forward to learning more about Chinese food than what I can find at the all-you-can-eat buffet down our street.

And, sure, there was a 10-second clip featuring Tony eating sliced heart at a hole in the wall that had never heard of commercial ice machines, much less health inspections or hair nets. But every couple of seconds one of those highly-annoying pop-ups appeared on the screen to inform me of the free wallpapers, pictures, videos and more of Anthony Bourdain.

The man, I learned, even has his own Wiki. Look, when you’ve got your own Wiki you’re about as commercial as laundry detergent, and just about as “sexy” or “dangerous”.

All of the Bad Boy appeal, the gonzo-style food porn, the vicarious thrills of watching someone else booze and dine their way through countries I can’t afford to visit is gone. Bourdain — who has been on my “list” for over a year now — is about as much of a “rebel” as the middle-aged guy next door who likes talking about his glory days of boozing and bedding countless women in between flipping his kid’s burgers on his backyard grill.

He’s not on my list, either.

It’s Day 2 on Alli, and no, I’ve still not suffered any of those “unwanted treatment effects.” Well, ok, I did find myself clutching my stomach in agony a couple of times, but that was most likely due to the 15 oz. of Brussels sprouts I munched on instead of crackers while watching TV last night.

The manufacturers booklets that come with Alli — and there are quite a few of them, let me tell you — are very adamant about keeping fat intake down to less than 15 grams per meal, 5 grams per snack.

So yesterday, I looked up the nutritional content of every bite of food and tracked it all in an online diet journal. Yes, I could keep a paper-and-pen food journal but I always manage to misplace such things. Since I’m near a computer throughout most of the day, an online version works so much better for me. Another benefit: since I tend to stick to the same foods, particularly for breakfast and lunch, I like the way the journal “learns” from me — making it easy to add my typical foods into my daily food log rather than having to scroll through a huge list day after day.

Tracking my actual food intake with a calorie counter the instant I ate something definitely kept me mindful of every single bite. I’m certain that, both the risk of “unwanted treatment effects” of Alli and the immediate awareness of my calories consumed thus far gave me a more motivation to make good food choices.

Altogether, my fat intake yesterday was 46 grams, well within the recommended limits for a woman of my age and activity level. My calorie intake was 1719, also within the suggested guidelines for weight loss.

And the result? I woke up to find that the effort might well have been worth it: I managed to lose a pound. Sure, that’s most likely water (even though I did drink my standard 10 glasses yesterday) but when you’re trying to lose weight, every ounce lost adds more motivation.

Technorati Tags: Alli, diet, nutrition, fitness

Take two flavors of summer, put them together and what do you get: Kool-Aid Pickles. Really. Oddly enough, despite my fondness for Southern food (why, yes, I do keep a jar of bacon grease in the fridge for flavoring), I’d never heard of these until reading about them in a NY Times article a couple of weeks ago. My first reaction? Well, it sounded suspiciously like I’d just shoved a pickle too far down my throat, Kool-Aid not included.

Then I got to thinking, hey, I pride myself on trying all sorts of strange foods, so why not this? Besides, it sounded like a fun way to get my son “cooking.”

The recipe is surprisingly simple:

1 huge jar dill pickles
2 packets of Kool-Aid (we used cherry-flavored)
2 cups sugar
2 quart water

Directions

1. Remove pickles from jar and drain. Slice them lengthwise.
2. Place pickles in a 5-gallon container. I used our sun tea jug which works just fine.
3. In a large jug, mix the Kool-Aid, sugar and water. (Note: you are basically making double-strength Kool-Aid.)
4. Pour Kool-Aid mixture on top of pickles. Seal jar and give it a shake.
5. Shake daily for the next 5 to 7 days. Letting them sit longer is better.
6. After a week, remove pickles with tongs and insert Popsicle sticks or bamboo skewers to make them easier to eat. (This will keep your fingers from turning pink, too.)

How do they taste? Well, as the NY Times article says:

Depending on your palate and perspective, they are either the worst thing to happen to pickles since plastic brining barrels or a brave new taste sensation to be celebrated.

I kind of liked them. Then again, I’d had three martinis before my first bite.

Technorati Tags: Kool-Aid pickles

Turning 40 means having a whole new slew of health issues to watch. Of them, getting my recommended amount of calcium is probably the most difficult: I don’t like milk and, although I love cheese I’ve had to cut back on it due to the fat content. (Low-fat cheese, in my book, is not cheese at all.) I’m not a fan of ice cream or yogurt, either, and while I do enjoy a glass of buttermilk now and again, I’m not about to drink three glasses of it daily. Oh, and there’s definite a limit to how much broccoli I’m willing to eat in a 24-hour span.

We all know that calcium is good for teeth and bones. Women know that it’s essential to preventing osteoporosis, and although the Dairy Council is supposed to stop advertising that calcium helps one lose weight, the notion’s already been planted in every dieting woman’s mind.

So what’s a milk-hating girl to do? One option is to pop pills. Coral calcium pills, to be precise. But with manufacturers offering so many different “proprietary blends,” it’s difficult to find the best supplement at the best price. So many companies opt for cheap sources, so what looks like a good deal might actually be a bad one in the long run, failing to deliver the amount of calcium they claim.

A non-profit group, The Coral Calcium Watchdog, tracks such things, along with research concerning the sometimes over-exaggerated claims concerning this supplement. In addition to monitoring the 9 leading manufacturers of coral calcium, they compare price per bottle and gram, and note how the coral calcium itself is harvested.

Harvesting directly affects the mineralization of the coral calcium as well as the environment. “Live harvesting,” a practice used in Brazil for instance, involves retrieving coral immediately after it washes up on shore. “Above sea level” harvesting takes place in Okinawa and involves digging up coral washed onto the shores and preserved under the sand. Both result in high mineralization and are environmentally friendly and without posing the danger to the reef of “below sea level” harvesting methods.

Now, while there have been many dubious claims made about coral calcium — some call it the “Fountain of Youth” — the research does not support them. Coral calcium is, however, a very effective source of calcium for those interested in supplementing their intake or who, like me, just don’t get it elsewhere in their diet.

With all of the hoopla about transfats and childhood obesity, McDonald’s seemed intent on positioning themselves as something short of evil. They’d just launched a program enlisting six moms to act as “quality correspondents” for their food, giving them complete access to the company’s operations. The aim, of course, is to have these six moms convince the rest of us that McDonald’s food is wholesome and nutritious.

It’s an uphill battle. They can put all the white meat they want into McNuggets, they can offer apple slices and skim milk on the side, but fried food is fried food, and it’s never going to be healthy.

The very same moms who worry about whether other people will call them “bad parents” for not making their kids wear helmets while bicycling, for letting them stay up too late, for watching too much TV — these are the moms who are now worrying that feeding their kids fast food on a regular basis also qualifies as bad parenting. These are the same moms at whom the McDonald’s Mom Brigage is aimed at winning over right now.

And for the rest of us? Let there be McMovies — self-serve kiosks within McDonald’s stores that let busy parents rent a movie for $1. The catch? You have to return it the next day which means, naturally, that you must return to McDonald’s. Just go ahead and try doing that with kids in tow while refusing to buy them yet another Happy Meal.

Evil, evil McDonald’s. I am so not lovin’ it.

Technorati Tags: McDonald’s, Mom Brigade, fast food, childhood obesity, movie rental

For those interested in trying the new diet pill which hit store shelves on Friday, Amazon is selling 90-capsule packs of Alli (30 days of pills) for $49.99, at a price that’s $10 less than most drugstores. Shipping is free.

Technorati Tags: Alli, diet pill, orlistat

Laying on the sofa, still nursing my back, I had to rewind Top Chef not once but twice to be certain I heard what I thought I heard: Electric Venom soup, a broth made from the combination of cooked eel and snake, from Chef Brian.

To which Anthony Bourdain (who remains on my list) says “I would love this dish if I was drunk. I feel like I should be eating it at the bar.”

It’s so nice to be both loved and understood.

UPDATE: I’ve made sure the folks at Top Chef know that I’m quite willing to show Anthony Bourdain how perfectly Electric Venom and drinking go together. He’s welcome anytime. I’ll buy the first round or six.

Technorati Tags: Top Chef, Anthony Bourdain, Electric Venom, drunk

Isn’t it beautiful? It’s my new Kitchen-Aid Stand Mixer, the one I’ve been lusting after for nine years. It’s mine now, thanks to VH, who saved it for the last - and best - birthday present yesterday. (He also bought me the grinder attachment. Fun!)

If you’ve got one, then you’ll know exactly what I mean when I say this thing is the best “appliance porn” I’ve ever seen. Within minutes of opening the box, I was whipping up some banana bread for The Big-Eyed Boy to take as a “thank you” to our friends who watched him last night while VH and I went out. Within three minutes, the batter was mixed and ready to pour, and since I could do it all in the stand-mixer I didn’t have a sink full of dirty dishes.

I’ll be baking a lot more now, I’m sure. No doubt that’s something VH was hoping for. But I’ll be making meatloaf more often, too, since now I don’t have to get my hands greasy to do it.

But first, it’s time to whip up some chocolate chip cookies. There goes my diet!

Much as I dreaded it, this was quite possibly the best birthday I’ve ever had. Nice and relaxing, spent in the company of good people: She Who Will Be Obeyed and John of Arghhh! and, of course, The Venomous Hubby.

The four of us went to the New Theatre Restaurant where Jamie Farr performed in Busy Body, a murder/comedy play filled with fast-paced banter, hilarious twists and quirky characters. The martinis were fantastic. John praised the margaritas as competent. All four of us agreed that, buffet-style or no, the food was unbelievably good. We were all quite surprised since buffets are not generally known for the quality of their food, but this one definitely deserves several stars.

The risotto simmered in veal stock was delicious, and the perfect accompaniment to the roast beef shoulder tenderloin (of which I had far more than I should!). And who would’ve thought that the most exquisite polenta I’ve had would come from a buffet? That alone was enough to make me want to go there again some day soon, as I hope to do.

If you’re in the area, I can’t recommend an evening at The New Theatre Restaurant highly enough. With reasonably priced seats, a full-service bar and a gourmet buffet — not to mention some excellent entertainment — it’s a wonderful way to spend a Friday night.

Yes, even one on which you turn 40.

In addition to using my exercise bike faithfully for the past week — along with that workout DVD in the right-hand sidebar — I’ve been dieting. Surprisingly, I’m enjoying it. In fact, I can’t recall a diet that I’ve enjoyed quite so much.

What’s the trick, you ask? I’ve been following Volumetrics, an eating plan that is anything but revolutionary. No quick fix here: simply eliminate “empty calories” and replace them with lower-calorie, fiber-rich foods. So much food, as a matter of fact, that I find myself voluntarily eating much, much smaller portions.

I’ve even managed to sneak vegetables onto VH’s plate without his knowledge, and if that sounds deceitful keep in mind that my husband’s daily vegetable intake typically consists of the sole piece of wilted lettuce and anemic tomato on his lunch-time hamburger. When dinner rolls around, he opts for meat, meat and more meat. Until now.

Last night I whipped up what I’m calling “Sin-Free Crockpot Lasagna.” It’s gooey and comforting, just like the real thing, but with less fat and plenty of veggies… even though you’d never know it.

Ingredients

9 whole wheat lasagna noodles, uncooked
1 lb. low-fat ground turkey
1 large can low-sodium tomato sauce
1 can diced tomatoes, Italian flavored
12 white button mushrooms, stemmed and sliced
1 eggplant, peeled and sliced into 1/4″ rounds
8 oz. fat-free mozzarella, shredded
1 carton fat-free cottage cheese
2 eggs
1/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese

Directions

1. Spread eggplant slices on paper towels and lightly salt them. Let sit and “sweat” for 20 minutes to eliminate bitterness.

2. While eggplant sweats, brown ground turkey. Rinse and drain. Stir in diced tomatoes.

3. Spray crockpot with fat-free cooking spray. (I use Pam.)

4. Break 3 lasagna noodles into pieces. Lay them to cover the bottom of the crockpot.

5. In food processor, mix cottage cheese, eggs and Parmesan cheese.

6. Spoon 1/3 of cottage cheese mixture on top of noodles in crockpot.

7. Rinse and pat dry eggplant. Spread 1/3 of eggplant in single layer in crockpot.

8. Spread 1/3 of sliced mushrooms in crockpot.

9. Spread 1/3 of ground turkey with tomatoes in crockpot.

10. Pour 1/3 of tomato sauce over lasagna.

11. Sprinkle 1/3 of mozzarella over lasagna.

12. Repeat layering of noodles, cottage cheese mixture, veggies, tomato sauce and mozzarella two more times.

13. Cover and cook on “low” for 8-9 hours, or on “high” for 4-6 hours.

Serve with a tossed salad (use fat-free dressing so you don’t blow your calories!) and a glass of your favorite anti-oxidant rich red wine.