You know how sometimes you get a spark of inspiration to do something without even thinking all that much about it at the time, only to later discover it’s possibly pretty awesome? Well, recently I had just this very experience.

My friend Christine (she’s got a blog over at Culinary Musings — check it out!) and I were talking recently about our mututal love of homemade bread. Now, I gotta tell ya, aside from fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies, I don’t know of too many things that will get my mouth watering the way homemade bread will do. And the cookies only get the nod because they’ve got chocolate in them, which is an automatic win; otherwise, the bread would come out on top every time.

Beyond the taste (which is awesome), I appreciate how, when you make your own, you know all the ingredients (which is also awesome). I mean, have you really read the ingredient list on a lot of the baked goods in your grocery store lately? I’ve seen some things in there I’m just not sure about. Heck, I’ve seen some things in there I can’t even pronounce.

Of course, you can get the same kind of peace of mind buying artesan bread from a bakery, or simply by being careful about reviewing the ingredient lists of commercial bread, but there’s also something incredibly satisfying about plunging your hands into a big ball of bread dough to start the kneading process.

(OK, OK, I admit it — I usually use a bread machine, so I miss all the “hands on” fun. Convenience wins out in the end, I guess.)

So, anyway, my husband’s family had always kept bread in the refrigerator. My family never did, but when I got married, I adopted his habit of refrigerating the loaf because I couldn’t think of a good reason to argue over it. And to be honest, it did seem to slow the process of going moldy even for commercial loaves. “Going moldy” is, if anything, an even bigger problem for homemade bread, as it has no preservatives. The problem was, though, even in a zipper-sealed bag in the fridge, the bread would still dry out and get stale and crusty (not in a good way) before we could finish it all. So we still ended up throwing away a bunch of excellent homemade bread. Bummer. Beyond bummer.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I could try making smaller loaves so we could finish them up faster. But there’s a limit to how small you can go, and with a son who isn’t a big bread eater (Oh, the humanity!) and a diabetic husband who’s on a perpetual carb-avoidance kick, bread consumption is largely up to me. Now that I’m on a weight loss challenge at work, I’m not eating as much bread as before, myself. Unless I wanted to limit myself to making dinner-roll sized loaves of bread, something had to be done.

And in stepped Fate. Recently, our old refrigerator died. (A moment of silence, please, for our formerly-chilly old friend.) The new model we got came with some snazzy new features the old one hadn’t offered. One of those features was a humidity-controlled drawer. It was apparently intended to store different types of fruits and veggies — you just select what degree of humidity you want depending on whether you’re storing apples or lettuce, for instance.

And here’s where my spark of inspiration hit. If the cool of the refrigerator was already keeping the mold at bay, so the only problem was the bread drying out… why not put the bread in the humidity-controlled drawer (on the “high” humidity setting) and see what happens?

I’m pleased to report it worked like a champ. I was able to keep a loaf of homemade bread (in a zipper-sealed freezer bag) edibly-soft and fresh for almost two weeks in there! Woot!

Now, I wouldn’t necessarily advise anybody to count on being able to keep preservative-free bread fresh and edible for that long. I would guess it would have something to do with the ingredients of the bread itself, how it’s wrapped, the temperature of the fridge, what else is stored in the drawer, how humid the “high humidity” setting is, and so forth.

So far, the only downside for me has been that there’s not much room in the humidity-controlled fruit and veggie drawer for, well, fruits and veggies, now that half the drawer is occupied by bread products. But it’s a small sacrifice to make for fresh bread, I think.

All I can say is, it worked great for me, so now I’m passing the suggestion along to you. Let me know if you try it, and how it works for you!

— Diane

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(Never mind what any nutrition-aware person would say about handing your kids a glassful of what is essentially sweetened water — nevermind whether it’s full of HFCS or just plain ol’ sugar water, we aren’t exactly talkin’ high nutritive value here, folks — “enhanced” with a cocktail of artificial colors and artificial flavors… I mean, that choice of beverages was so wrong on so many levels. But I digress.)

So the first mom feigns ignorance and says, “No, what do they say?” (all wide-eyed innocent-like) and the second mom stammers a bit (to demonstrate how she’s just relying on rumor and heresay and doesn’t really know anything bad about it herself)… so the first mom jumps in and smilingly informs us HFCS is a “natural” product just like sugar, and that — like many other things — it’s perfectly safe when consumed in moderation. Next scene: the two moms guzzling down glasses of sweetened artificial color and flavor for themselves and apparently preparing to serve the same to their kids.

Hmm.

Well, kudos to the Corn Refiners Association that produced the ads for giving it the old college try, but I’m still not convinced. Here’s why.

First off, in my opinion HFCS isn’t really “natural.” At least, not in the sense that sugar is natural. See, if you wanted to, you could make your own sugar right there at home. Granted, it would be a pain in the wazzoo, it would take awhile and it would make a huge mess, but you could do it.

But just try making your own HFCS. Yes, it starts out as corn, which is a natural product, but when you have to process the corn through several steps of enzyme conversion, liquid chromatography, carbon absorption, ion-exchange, etc… well, what you wind up with is nothing that would — or could — ever be produced by nature. In my book, that’s not a “natural” product. The FDA, FTC and Corn Refiners Association are free to disagree, of course. :)

But the part that really gets to me in the commercial is the bit about how HFCS is fine “when consumed in moderation.” This is incredibly disingenuous, given how difficult it is to consume HFCS “in moderation” these days. I mean, have you read the ingredient lists of the stuff you buy at the grocery store lately?

Those artificially-colored, artificially-flavored kids’ drinks such as the one the mom was serving in the commercial? Loaded with HFCS. They use it for sweetening because sugar in the USA costs about twice as much as it does in the rest of the world. Why? Because huge farming conglomerates have used their deep pockets to successfully lobby for decades to maintain subsidies for the corn industry and trade restrictions on sugar, keeping the price of sugar artificially high in the USA and Canada.

But it’s not just in those nasty, artificial-fakeness kids’ drinks. Pretty much any full-calorie soft drink in the USA — including bottled lemonade, iced tea, sodas, “fruit beverages,” etc. — will be sweetened with HFCS. There are a few that use sugar (and their devotees swear they taste better for it) but you have to look hard to find them.

Think you’re okay if you serve real juice, homemade lemonade or chilled water with your kids’ peanut butter and jelly sandwiches? Well, you are good on the beverage front, but you’d better check the ingredients on the jelly, because I bet you’ll find HFCS there. And you should check the bread, too. Not all bread has it, but some does. In fact, there are tons of baked goods that contain HFCS.

Which means the snack cakes you were going to serve for afternoon snack are probably out, because chances are they’re also loaded with HFCS. How about some cheese and crackers? The crackers have whole grain, so they’re healthy, right? Maybe… check your ingredient list. I noticed last night the Wheat Thins I’d been noshing on also contain HFCS. It’s also in Ritz Crackers (yep, even the whole wheat variety) and others. Triscuits look like they may be OK, though.

How about pasta? Well, those Spaghetti-O’s that have been heavily advertising themselves lately on kids’ TV channels as a “hunger-satisfying afternoon snack”… you guessed it. HFCS. Or maybe one of those convenient little “Lunchables” from Oscar Mayer? Nope, HFCS is probably lurking in there, too — and depending on the variety, potentially in the crackers and the dessert item.

Sitting down to breakfast? Check your cereal box. HFCS lurks in some places you might not think: Rice Krispies, Kellogg’s All Bran and Corn Flakes, Special K, and Smart Start “Healthy Heart,” to name a few. Interestingly, it’s not in some of the sweet varieties where you might expect to find HFCS, like Lucky Charms, Reese’s Puffs and Cinnamon Toast Crunch. All of these are HFCS free. You really have to read each label to see which ones have it and which ones don’t.

Going out for burgers for supper? Want some ketchup on your fries? Check the ingredients on that ketchup. I noticed HFCS was on the list for the brand we had been using. Decided to stay home and grill your own? Better check the barbecue sauce before you go slathering it on. HFCS was the second-highest ingredient listed on the bottle of barbecue sauce I found in our fridge.

And it goes on and on. The thing is, it’s misleading to say something’s OK “in moderation” when nobody in the audience knows what “moderation” is… and when it’s so darned tough to avoid the ingredient in the first place.

Is there a way to avoid it? Sure — prepare everything you eat from scratch. (It is possible to make your own ketchup and barbecue sauce, and to bake your own crackers and snack cakes, and to make your own jelly, you know.) But let’s get real here. That’s just not practical for most of us. I work; my husband runs a company. We’re both busy people, and honestly some days if it weren’t for convenience foods we’d starve. I’m betting at least some of y’all are in a similar situation. So we’re pretty much stuck in a lot of cases with reading the ingredient lists and just doing the best we can.

Now, maybe HFCS is as benign as the Corn Refiners Association wants us to believe. On the other hand, maybe there is some relationship between consuming too much HFCS and getting fat or developing diabetes, as some other folks claim. All I know is, I’m going to start reading food labels a lot more closely from now on so I can get a better idea of just how much of this stuff we’re actually taking in. I’m just saying.

— Diane

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Don’t forget… I warned you. :)

A bit of background: I’m a big Monkees fan. Have been for years. I know, I know… but I can’t help it. I just love those guys. Anyway, back in the late 80s and early 90s, The reunited Monkees were actively touring (minus Mike, of course) and even released a couple of albums.

There were fans who’d travel all over the country to see them (I know this to be true because I was one of them…) and every summer there were Monkees conventions — big get-togethers where the organizers would rent a ballroom or convention center, arrange for discounted hotel rooms, invite celebrity guests and get hundreds of die-hard Monkee fans to show up for several days of memorabilia shopping, video watching and general mayhem.

And the thing was, the vast majority of the fans who attended these conventions were actually perfectly normal, well-adjusted people. They had jobs and families and behaved responsibly almost all the time. They just enjoyed the opportunity to act silly and relive a happy part of their childhood for a long weekend once or twice a year. For most of us, it was simply a bit like Halloween or Mardi Gras with extra 60s flavor — a few days to cut loose in the midst of a generally sedate grown-up life.

But there were a few, a tiny minority, a handful, who were seriously weird. I mean seriously weird. They had Monkees logos and cartoon likenesses of the guys tattooed on their bodies, they showed up dressed in homemade Monkee Man costumes, they legally changed their names to the names of characters from The Monkees TV show. Some of these people seemed to live, eat, and breathe The Monkees, 24/7.

Now guess which group was invariably selected by the local media to interview on-camera when they did their stories on the convention?

Ugh. These wackos gushed and simpered and bragged about how obsessed they were, while the rest of us cringed because we knew the “outside world” was probably getting the idea we were all like that. But there was nothing we could do, because “oh, those wacky obsessive Monkees fans” plays better on-camera than “look, a bunch of normal people having a bit of harmless fun.”

I understand this also happened to the Dark Shadows and Star Trek fans at their conventions, and they hated it as much as we did. And now I see the same thing happening at the Democratic National Convention.

Part of the problem is, the so-called “liberal bias” that right-wing talk radio hosts keep going on about is a lie. Most media in this country is owned by staunch conservatives (like Rupert Murdoch, who’s about as right wing as they get). These conservatives have decided the story is to be that the Democrats are in disarray, that the party is deeply split and on the verge of falling apart, that the Clintons are plotting behind the scenes to undermine Barack Obama.

This is because this is what they want to be happening. The fact that reality doesn’t match their desires is apparently irrelevant. If the story doesn’t happen the way they want in real life, they’ll just make up the story.

So they go out and find the handful of immature, whiny, spoiled brats among Hillary’s supporters and interview them as though their opinion is the majority. And it annoys me as much now with the DNC as it did back in 1988 and 1989 at the Los Angeles and Chicago Monkees conventions.

Are there some Hillary supporters who are now going to vote for McCain out of spite? Possibly. I would hope by the time the election rolls around all but the dimmest would have figured out what a spectacularly bad idea that would be — do they really think Hillary will appreciate them supporting a Republican for the White House? If so, they don’t know the Clintons very well. But, well, some people are just plain dim, and there’s not much the rest of us can do but try to limit the damage they cause.

Are there some who will sit out the elections? Yep, most likely, for the same reason. And they’re wrong and they’re not showing any honor or respect for Hillary by doing so, for the same reasons.

But from what I hear, and what I see, and based on my own personal experience, I strongly suspect these two groups are in the tiny minority, and only destined to grow tinier as Election Day nears.

I just hope the Dems get their public relations/marketing act together to get the real story out instead of letting the GOP and their media mogul allies control the playing field. It’s going to be tough given the anti-Dem bias in the mainstream media, but it’s got to be done.

— Diane

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Whoa! Did you hear the news that Julia Child was a WWII spy? Wow — and you thought whipping up a perfect bernaise sauce was exciting!

Yep, turns out the woman who was pretty much single-handedly responsible for popularizing gourmet French cooking in the US was also a genuine cloak-and-dagger spy (before she became The French Chef, though).

Potentially casts the world travels of Anthony Bordain in a whole new light, eh? Wonder if there’s anything he’s not telling us about all those trips overseas…

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But, hey, that beats her chances of 16%. And, to paraphrase the old joke, I don’t need to outrun the zombies. I just need to outrun her. So chances are I might come out OK. Sorry, Lisa. ;) It’s only 15 questions — why not take it yourself, and let me know how you did?

Anyway, that led me to this whole page of eminently informative quizzes. In addition to assessing your chances of making it through a zombie attack, you can find out whether you’d make a good human shield, how long you’d likely survive in the vacuum of space (handy to know, fer sure), how many five year old children you could fight at once and win (moms and daycare workers might want to check this out) and much, much more. (For the record, my body is only 36% effective as a human shield, I would survive approximately one minute, eleven seconds in space and could take on 26 preschoolers in a fight.)

See? You can learn stuff even when you spend all day hanging out in the kitchen!

— Diane

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So naturally, those of us who are participating are pretty much obsessed with calories (incoming and burned). And one of the big questions is: does it make a difference if the calories come from fat or carbs?

I mean, some of the folks swear by the low carb diets, and others are convinced that low fat is the only way to go. My personal feeling has always been that it’s not so much what kind of calories, but how many, that makes the difference. So the big question around the office is: who’s right?

And I’m feeling vindicated. I just came across this article that says “in terms of weight loss, low-fat diets and low-carb diets overall are equally effective (and, most of the time, neither will help you keep the weight off long-term)” That’s according to Walter Willett, chair of the department of nutrition at Harvard School of Public Health.

You can betcha I’m going to print out a bunch of copies of this one and leave them lying around the office… *grin*

So, anyway, they’ve apparently done a bunch of studies, and it turns out it doesn’t matter much whether your calories come from fat or carbs. The old saying is true: if you want to lose weight, the thing to do is take in fewer calories and/or burn off more of what you’ve got. In other words, “eat less and move more.”

The other interesting part (well, it was interesting to me, at least) is that they’ve studied a lot of people over a period of 30 years, and they haven’t found that different proportions of fat or carbs in the diet affect the incidence of heart attacks, strokes or some forms of cancer. So maybe that good old “balanced diet” thing my mom was always harping about is maybe not such an outdated idea after all.

Seems the only thing you really need to watch out for are those nasty trans fats. According to Dr. Willett, people who ate a more trans fats gain more than people who avoid them, even when they eat the same total number of calories. I guess it pays to read those nutritional labels — and it’s a good thing so many food companies are jumping off the trans fats bandwagon lately.

OK, so as I said, they’re doing this weight loss challenge thing at my office. And I’m in. So far I’m down about 4.5 pounds. Wish me luck!

— Diane

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Unfortunately, in this urbanized age, many of us have gotten away from the land, and over time we’ve come to rely too much on many produce items being available year-round, thanks to globalization. So unless you’re a gardener or farmer or you spend a lot of time haunting your local farmer’s market, you may not know for sure which produce is in peak season in your area.

Some grocery stores around here have made a commitment to stock locally-grown produce whenever available. Maybe some in your area have done the same. But sometimes you have to read carefully to make sure what you’re buying is truly local. Wouldn’t it be easier if you already knew which produce is in peak season?

Which is why I was really pleased to stumble over this Peak Season Map at the Epicurious site.

It’s really cool! You just select the month you want from the menu across the top of the map, click on your state and it brings up a list of fruits and vegetables that are in season in that month in that state. Mouse over each item and it displays a small photo along with a recipe slideshow and links to more information and cooking tips.

Happy eating!

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Another part of the problem is confusion over terms: organic versus “natural” versus “green” or “eco-friendly.“ What do they all mean, and what difference does it make?

But the number one concern according to the polls quoted by CNN is the price of organic products — as much as 50% to 100% more than comparable non-organic products.

The Challenge of Being Green

So how do you balance being eco-conscious with being budget conscious at the same time? We all want to help the environment (at least, I assume none of us are in favor of actively damaging the world we live in), but there’s only so much money to go around and few of us can afford to pay $7 or $8 for a gallon of milk or $4.50 for a loaf of bread just because they’ve got an “organic” label slapped on them.

For some consumers, a commitment to going organic means they’re willing to cut back on other discretionary spending in order to be able to afford the high price of organic goods. The NY Times article quotes one shopper who quit smoking, cut back on drinking and has eliminated unnecessary spending on things like ski trips and the like. But not all of us are willing (or able) to make the kind of cuts necessary. So what else can we do?

A way some consumers are coping with the high price of organic produce is by switching to buying local produce at farmers’ markets as much as possible. If you have a well-stocked, legitimate farmer’s market in your area, this can be an attractive alternative. The produce may not be strictly 100% certified organic, but it’s local, it’s usually less expensive than the supermarket, and you’re supporting smaller farmers who do tend in many cases to practice more environmentally-friendly farming than the big conglomerates that supply the food store chains.

Problem is, some so-called “farmers’ markets” aren’t what they may seem on the surface. There’s a small market near my home, for instance, that calls itself a farmer’s market and offers bushel baskets of various types of fresh produce out front. Only thing is, I notice some items (such as bananas) that I know nobody here in North Carolina is likely growing. And others (such as some onions they had recently) that were already tagged with those little grocery store stickers with the four-digit ID numbers on them the supermarket clerks use to identify and ring up produce items. Which means, those onions weren’t just dug up out of the ground by a local farmer. This alleged “farmer’s market” bought them from a distributor.

Of course, some of their produce is obviously fresh and locally-grown. The point is, you have to be careful, if your objective is to buy locally-grown produce, to make sure what you’re getting really is locally-grown and wasn’t shipped in from out of state (or out of the country).

And what if you don’t have a farmer’s market nearby, but you’re still concerned about pesticide use on produce you and your family consume?

A recommendation from some experts is to choose your produce wisely. Those that are typically high in pesticides, pay the higher price to buy organic. Those that are typically low in pesticides, you can save money by going “regular.”

The Environmental Working Group has a fruit and veggie guide you can print out and tuck in your wallet that rates 43 common produce items by the amount of pesticides non-organic versions typically carry.

So, for instance, if you want peaches (#1 highest pesticide load), you’d probably want to go organic. But for onions (the lowest pesticide load on the list), you can pretty safely buy “regular.” You can decide for yourself where along the spectrum your tolerance lies, and shop accordingly.

Knowledge, they say, is power. With this list, the power is now in your hands. Use it in good health!

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Apples

Calories:

Approx. 60 per medium sized apple / 75 per cup, chopped

Nutrients:

Apples contain modest amounts of some vitamins or minerals. However, pectin (located in and just below the skin) may help reduce cholesterol. Also, as a dessert, apples can help satisfy a sweet tooth without causing a big spike in your blood sugar. Be careful about serving upeeled apples to babies and toddlers, though — the peels are choking hazards for kids under the age of three.

How to select:

Look for smooth-skinned apples that aren’t shriveled and are very firm. Beware of bruises (look for small depressions in the skin) or overly-soft fruits.

Storage:

If necessary, you can let apples ripen further at room temperature for a day or two. They’ll keep in the refrigerator for two to four weeks before they start to get soft. Soft apples can still be used for applesauce or in baking recipes. Versatile apples offer many longer-term storage options: they can be dried, turned into fruit leather, canned, made into applesauce (can be frozen), or frozen as slices (good for use in pies). Frozen apples or applesauce will keep for up to 12 months.

Pears

Calories:

Approx. 50 per medium sized pear

Nutrients:

Good source of fiber, vitamins A, B, C and iron.

How to select:

Pears should be somewhat firm, but not hard. Seek out pears that are slightly soft, as they have already begun to ripen, which indicates they’re mature and will ripen sufficiently on their own. Unless you can eat them pretty much right away, buy fruits that are slightly underripe and let them ripen at home. Avoid immature fruits that appear to be wilted or shriveled — they will never ripen.

Storage:

You can ripen pears at room temperature for up to five days. They’ll keep for up to another five days in the refrigerator. For long term storage, you can keep in a root cellar, dry, or freeze (sliced or puréed). Frozen, pears will keep for up to a year. The Bartlett variety is generally recommended for freezing and drying; so-called “winter pears” such as Anjou, Bosc and Comice are better for root cellaring and do not freeze as successfully.

— Diane

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According to the article, the new store layout is “flowing” and “intuitive.” Uhm, yeah… well, maybe.

Apparently, one of the things they’re going to do is group what they call “like items” together. As examples, they mention things such as cereal and milk, and coffee and creamer. Not necessarily a bad thing (although I do wonder at the type of customers typically shopping The Pig if they can’t figure out where to find cereal and milk without them being located right next to each other).

They also plan to group fresh, frozen and canned versions of the same fruits and vegetables together. Again, not necessarily a stupid idea, but — speaking personally — not one that seems terribly useful. I mean, if I want frozen veggies, I want them frozen for a reason. If the frozen are out of stock, I’m not going to switch over to canned or fresh; I’m simply not going to buy. Putting all three right next to each other won’t make a difference.

Now, maybe I’m an anomaly and other shoppers are more willing to switch. Perhaps in the cutthroat, razor-thin-margin world of retail grocery marketing, they’ve discovered they can eke out a few extra sales a day by doing this. If so, bully for them. Have at it.

But here’s where I think the whole scheme starts to go off the rails: “one stop stations.” According to the article, these stations would feature items like ground beef, hamburger buns, chips and beer arranged together for “complete meal solutions.”

Now hold on just a gol’durned minute there. What if I don’t want to make hamburgers with the ground beef? What if I’m making a ground beef casserole or tacos or meatballs stroganoff? I’m a creative cook. Unless the store designer has ESP or something, those one stop stations aren’t going to do me any good in the vast majority of situations… and it’s just going to confuse me about where to go to find the ingredients I do need for whatever dish I plan to make.

They claim this is supposed to be more in line with how people intuitively shop? I’m sorry, I’ve been grocery shopping for decades now, and my intuition tells me to look for the hamburger buns in the bread aisle, the sour cream and cheese in the dairy department, the egg noodles on the pasta/macaroni aisle, and the ground beef in the meat department. It ain’t exactly rocket science, folks.

In their scenario, though, if I don’t find what I’m looking for where I think it ought to be, does that mean they don’t carry it at all? Does it mean they carry it, but it’s just temporarily out of stock? Or does it mean my intuition doesn’t work they way the store designer’s does, and I’m simply looking at the wrong “one stop shop”?

Call me an old fuddy-duddy, but I don’t have a problem with the layout of existing supermarkets. Perhaps its a symptom of my logical, analytical nature. Putting all the meat in one place, all the bread in one place, all the cereal in one place, all the dairy in one place — that, to me, IS “intuitive.” Scattering them across multiple “one stop stations,” not so much.

Personally, I don’t consider it an improvement to have to search the entire store trying to figure out where the store designer has decided to “group” an ingredient I need.

Seems to me this is simply a cunning plan to make shoppers spend even more time in the store, and make them wander through even more departments… errr, that is to say “stations”… than before.

Which doesn’t exactly astonish me, given the studies that show the longer people spend in the store, the more money they spend. Gentle readers, don’t be fooled. This is not about making it easier for you to get in and get out with what you need. This is about keeping you in the store as long as humanly possible without violating laws about kidnapping.

I mean, some people may like the new softly-lit, hardwood-floored décor and the snazzy new one stop stations and food groupings and what-all. And perhaps the homey, “non commercial” ambience will get more of them to disregard the generally higher prices and shop at Piggly Wiggly instead of the Wal*Mart Supercenter down the road. But will it really make the shopping experience easier and more intuitive? Color me skeptical.

Hat-tip to Ted Mininni at MarketingProfs Daily Fix for bringing this to my attention!

Copyright © Diane Aull. All rights reserved.

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