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Posts tagged ‘lemons’

Apr 16

Think Thin Tuesday: Getting Moussed on the Elkohol!

Girls like pretty things.  Guys stop asking me why girls like silly, pretty things.  Sometimes a rose is just a rose – and seeing something innocent, simple and beautiful can incredibly life affirming.  There are things girls love to think about and do purely because of the beauty of it.  I know you guys understand these fantasies more than you want to let on.  Barney Stinson and the popularity of Mad Men have proven that to me.  True your desires are a bit…smarmier than ours but regardless you are romanticizing those fantasies.  Why else would two of the most iconic womanizers of the decade be brandy swirling, suit wearing debonair dudes?  Admit it you kind of like getting dressed up once in a while too.

With summer finally starting to peek its head around the corner it’s time to start thinking about planning those wonderful summer cocktail parties.  Or at least in my imaginative world where I’m a Manhatten socialite I’m planning those parties.  You know the kind.  Music.  Women in summer dresses.  Men in linen suits.  China twinkling.  The sort of Audrey Hepburn fairytale life that a lot of silly girls like to daydream about.  I swear I never was one to imagine the details of my wedding but boy did I ever day dream about my ideal apartment and social gatherings in some upper-east side version of paradise.

I’d really love to have a place to host some sort of garden top party this summer.  It would just feel like the ultimate bucket list item.  OF course the problem is that I need money.  I need friends.  I need a life.  All of these things are kind of essential to this desire of mine.  I think if I were planning on for LA it would be easier since I know more people there who might enjoy an exercise in dressing up and getting all pretty just for the hell of it.

Only problem is that I don’t live in LA and I certainly wouldn’t be able to cater the affair which is half the fun of it for me.  Making appetizers and hors d’oeuvres is a lot of fun.  I love recipes like this one.  They are dainty, delicious and unfortunately oftentimes quite fattening too.  That’s why you have such little portions.  Hey we’ve gotta be able to fit in those fancy clothes we wear!  If the buttons are popping off and clothes exploding open it quickly becomes a different kind of party no?  And those little bites are pretty easy to start gulping down as the evening goes on…especially if you get the “drunchies” aka the drunken munchies. Since we all know the best garden party is a champagne fueled brunch at 11AM on a sunny Sunday…drunchies are sure to abound.

So if you are thinking of hosting any sort of party this summer—a wedding, a brunch for friends, a fundraiser with all your wealthy single bachelors for puppies (and hey invite me would you?) this is a great light recipe to whisk around on those serving platters or serve up as a dessert after a lavish dinner party.  Go ahead and “gazelle” it down because this recipe is deliciously, drunkenly de-lite-ful.  I have made this mousse several times over the last few summers and I don’t even really like melon all that much.  It’s sweet, it’s light and refreshing and hands down one of my FAVORITE drunken recipes.  The mousse itself is totally gluten free as well so if you have any celiac intolerant folks in the group you can just serve it in cups instead of pastry shells.  They will LOVE this…and then they’ll eat enough that they will “like oh my god you guys, you are the most awesome people ever and I really, really fucking love you.  Okay?  Let’s make this moment last forever okay?”  You know what I’m talking about.

Musk Melon Mousse Bites

Adapted from “The Boozy Baker”

  • ½ cup Muscat Wine
  • 3 envelopes unflavored gelatin
  • 1 honeydew melon, sliced into chunks
  • ½ cup sugar, divided
  • ¼ cup lemon juice, divided
  • 2/3 cup fat free plain yogurt
  • 24 phyllo pastry shells
  • Sliced strawberries for topping

Pour the Muscat Sec into a small saucepan and sprinkle the gelatin on top.  Let it soften for about 2 minutes and then cook over low heat, stirring constantly until the gelatin is dissolved.  Remove from the heat and allow to cool.

In a blend puree half the melon with ¼ cup of the sugar and 2 Tbsp of lemon juice.  With the blender running, slowly pour in half of the Muscat mixture.  Transfer the melon mixture to a large metal bowl set in a pan of ice water.  Repeat with the remaining melon, sugar, lemon juice and Muscat mixture and then add the second half of the melon mixture to the metal bowl.

Stir the melon mixture for 3 to 5 minutes, or until it begins to thicken slightly (its texture should be similar to that of maple syrup or raw egg whites.)  Remove the bowl from the ice water and stir in the yogurt.

Pour the mousse into a large glass bowl and refrigerate for at least 4 hours.  Serve scoop spoonfuls into your pastry shells and top with some sliced strawberries.

Nutrition info per pastry shell: 66 calories | 14g carbohydrates (9g sugar) | 1 g fat | 2g protein

1 serving of 3 shells is still less than 200 calories.  Not a bad dessert.

Apr 1

Race and Beans- Sephardic for Passover

morrocanbeefpreservedlemons (4)Two more days!   Then it’s totally time for Pizza and Beer.  The perfect counterbalance to the Passover grain-free agony.  I am retaining so much water too.  I’ve gained something like 2-3 pounds in the last two days alone.  I feel so bloated and disgusting.  Oy.

morrocanbeefpreservedlemons (2)But just like two more days we’ve got two more pieces to our Seder plate to discuss.  Today is a simple one – the Zeroa or lamb shank.  The bone is placed on the plate to represent G-d’s arm as it swept over the land and protected the Jews.  Remember that blood of the lamb was what Jewish homes were marked with so their children were spared the fate of the tenth plague.  Lamb was also traditionally sacrificed each year for the holiday at the Holy Temple…until its destruction.  My understanding is that it is because of the destruction of the Holy Temple that the lamb shank on the seder plate is now ceremonial and no lamb is consumed that night.  To remember that without a temple there was no way to perform the ceremony and sacrifice.  What temple do I speak of?  Once the Jews finally reached the Holy Land they constructed their Holy Temple.  Except this structure was destroyed…twice; first by Babylonians and then later by the Romans.  The Greeks  tried to get in on the action too in between those attempts but the temple was never destroyed and was reclaimed by a group of Jewish fighters—this story actually relates back to the only Hebrew Holiday most Americans know – Hanukkah.  Anyway after the second destruction the Romans banned the Jews from Jerusalem.  Eventually Muslims conquered the holy land and a series of Christian/Muslim holy wars ensued.  A third temple has never been constructed though it is often prayed for and the subject of much debate.  The Temple Mount, which is what remains of the Holy Temple, is a highly contested religious location as you might imagine.

morrocanbeefpreservedlemons (7)Now let’s segue for a minute though this will come back around I promise you.  The holiday is finally starting to wind down and by now you may have caught a Jewish friend scarfing down a burrito bowl out with friends.  “Wait a minute!” You say now armed with the knowledge from my Matzo post “Aren’t beans and rice considered “kitniyot” and also forbidden along with grains”  Your friend might reply with something along the lines of “Ummmm I’m going Sephardic for Passover” and then continue to stuff his or her face with chipotle contraband.  No that wasn’t a sneeze though it is a lame, but incredibly useful, copout many of us will use.

See Judaism is not a race.  Judaism is a culture.  There are many races that comprise the Jewish community.  This repeated destruction of the temple and removal of Jews from their holy land resulted in centuries of diaspora – or the movement away from a homeland.  The Jewish people became a scattered people across the globe.  And it wasn’t just this one time that they were relocated either.  European history is littered with records of countries expelling Jews at various times.  We were a pretty nomadic people for hundreds of years.  Guess the desert was good preparation.

Most traditionally when people think of “Jews” they think of North and Eastern European Jews known as the Ashkenazi.  You know the type.  Big noses, skin that doesn’t tan set against dark hair and the funny looking sideburns.  The thing is that Jews are NOT a race.  They don’t have a set of distinctive and universal features like skin color.  There are African Jews, Asian Jews, Israeli/Middle Eastern and Western European Jews—it’s a global Jew-demic!  Religious practices aren’t consistent either across these various groups as centuries of separation and Talmudic study led to differing practices.  This is partly why you have so many different aspects of the religion (orthodox, reform, conservative) and also is why I consistently say that Judaism transcends religion and race—it’s a culture and it’s a big one.morrocanbeefpreservedlemons

So what are Sephardic Jews?  Sephardic Jews are those who settled in North Africa and Western Europe.  Passover for Sephardic Jews does not entail a ban on things like rice, lentils and other legumes that resemble grains.  Why?  Well think about the cultures they were exposed to.  France, Spain, Portugal and Morocco specifically are all regions where rice, beans, and these other items are largely part of the regional diet.  I don’t think rice was as essential to the Germans.  Assimilation to culture and just a different interpretation of religious text has resulted in a separate custom.  So your more traditionally Ashkenazi friend might decide to “adopt” the Sephardic label for Passover to make eating easier.  It’s not really “kosher” to do so but some years you make concessions I guess.  What I do wonder and don’t know is how this works out in Israel.  I’d love some feedback from Israeli jews.  The second largest population of immigrants to Israel, after Russian Jews (Ashkenazi), were Moroccan Jews.  Yup like Casablanca.  I wonder if the Sephardi who moved to Israel have given up this practice of eating non-grain, grainy like foods….morrocanbeefpreservedlemons (6)

Then of course there’s Quinoa.  Quinoa is for some bizarre reason not considered kitniyot.  It was explained to me by another friend like this “the Rabbis didn’t know it existed so they didn’t know to expressly forbid it.”  Erm.  Okay.  Another loophole.  Whatever if it means I get something starchy to put in my stomach other than this Matzo I’m happy!

Moroccan Lamb Meatballs

an Olivia Original

Meatballsmorrocanbeefpreservedlemons (3)

  • 2 lb ground lamb
  • 1 small preserved lemon, peel, chopped
  • 1 sweet onion, chopped
  • 1 egg
  • 2 Tbsp matzo meal
  • 1 tsp coriander
  • 1 tsp roasted cumin
  • ½ tsp turmeric
  • 1 cup chopped parsley
  • ½ teaspoon pepper
  • ½ tsp cinnamon

Sauce

  • 2 Tbsp grapeseed oil
  • 1-28 oz can crushed tomatoes
  • 2 small preserved lemons, chopped
  • 5 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1 teaspoon paprika
  • ½ tsp cayenne pepper (more adjusted to desired spice)
  • 1 teaspoon turmeric
  • 1 Tbsp honey
  • 1 cup chicken or beef stock
  • 2-3 large sliced bell peppers
  • 1 small onion, diced
  • Salt and Pepper to taste

For the meatballs: blend together the spices and mix into the ground lamb.  In a food processor be sure to mince down the lemon and onion very fine.  Mix this into the ground lamb followed by the egg and matzo meal.  Form small meatballs – about 1 inch in diameter and set aside.  Preserved lemons are very salty so you will not need to add any salt to this mixture.

Sauce: Heat 1 Tbsp oil in a sauce pan over medium high heat.  Add the onion, garlic and the bell peppers and cook for 6-8 minutes until translucent.  Pour in the crushed tomatoes and chicken stock.  Bring to a boil and then reduce to a simmer.  Add the lemons and spices and let this simmer for about 10 minutes until the volume reduces slightly.  Taste and add honey or salt and pepper to desired flavor.

Meanwhile in large wide rimmed pan or tagine add the other 1 Tbsp of oil over high heat.  Add in the meatballs and brown—approximately 6 to 8 minutes on one side, turn and heat another 5.  Remove from the heat until you are ready to add the sauce.  Pour the sauce into the large pan with the meatballs and return to medium heat, cover and cook for an additional 20 minutes.  The meatballs will cook and flavor the sauce as well.

After 20 minutes taste and adjust seasoning as needed.  If the sauce is too thick you can thin it out with a little more broth.  Serve over rice or quinoa.

 

Mar 20

Heart and Mind, Toddy and Soul

For the most part I’ve written about how content I am with my life right now.  Well not content.  That’s a bad word in my vocabulary but I’m happy with where I’m at and don’t really feel like I’m missing out on anything by steadfastly remaining in my single and selfish zone.  Then there are nights like tonight; rainy, slightly cold evenings that scream out for a good movie, hot toddies, and popcorn.  What’s a hot toddy?  Um try a delicious warm beverage made from honey, lemon and bourbon/whisky.  It’s like drinking hot tea but with alcohol!  Yup rainy, wet cold evening– I want all these things and maybe, yes, it would pair well with that unmatchable feeling which accompanies having someone special to curl up into.  I’ll admit that even I feel a slight pang of longing on nights like this.  After all I’m working so hard on developing the mind, body and soul parts these days.  Is the heart just abandoned to the manchmal?

My body is healthier, stronger, and leaner than ever.  The health aspect really is such a triumph for me.  I did succumb to illness finally but I got better in a timely fashion that indicates I’m actually a human being with a functioning immune system now.  Contrasting this against say my junior year of high school, I was out sick 1 of every 3 days on average, makes me extremely happy.  I remember the sad resignation I felt when I walked into AP Bio after missing 3 days and having my friend happily announce “We’re studying what’s broken in you!” as I walked in.  This was his humorous way of letting me know we’d moved onto the immune system portion of our anatomy unit.  I laughed but it was a really sad truth and at the time it was one I thought would define me for the rest of my life.  Losing weight and getting into ridiculously good shape, because let’s face it I’ve got a Hot Toddy Body going on right now, was a fantastic bonus to my health efforts.  Body is good.  Body is great.

Soul is coming along.  I feel like I’m getting to explore so many interests and expand my horizons.  I’m sharing them as I can with you, dear reader, in my adventure posts.   One thing that I’d say is still craving in my life is more time exploring this acting world I’ve had a taste of.  When I go back and look at the videos I’ve done that itch gets harder to ignore.  Starting in April I’ll be taking some improv courses in Berkeley with my friend Doug and hopefully participating in some stagey theater productions.  Then who knows…I’ll see how it plays out.  Some people can get a thrill, knitting sweaters and sitting still /That’s OK for some people don’t know they’re alive/Some people can thrive and bloom, living life in a living room/ That’s perfect for some people of one hundred and five /But I, at least gotta try Even if this doesn’t play out the point is that I’m really pushing myself to grow and expand outward, soaking up everything in the world that I can.

Mind is happy.  I’m happy because I’m growing.  I’m learning, stretching and exploring my various worlds every day.  I have work, hobbies, habits and I’ve been able to indulge my appetite for books in a way I haven’t childhood.  I’m taking classes now through the UC Berkeley extension to get my Clinical Trial certification – already on week three of my first semester!  It’s nice to get back to my Hermione roots with school and reading.  It’s like discovering an old friend or putting on that cozy, oversized sweater.  I was always a bookworm and teacher’s pet and I’m okay with that.  I had my reasons for being so invested in my teachers, a post topic for another day, and school functioned largely as an escape for me.  It had rules that I understood, goals I could attain, and since knowledge is the basis for transformative power I have always been damned determined to get as much as I can.  In the meantime I’m learning tons on the job and really, really finding out that I enjoy it.  It’s nice to have a career.

I don’t sleep much but I don’t seem to need it so that’s okay.

But the heart…the heart has been left alone now for a while.  I think it’s going to continue to be despite longing on nights like this.  I miss it but I’m not ready yet, if ever, again to embrace that part of life.  There’s still a lot of healing left to go there.  I was telling my friend Dallas the other day that the common analogy about relationships leaving scars is flawed.  I don’t feel like my relationships have left scars.  Scar tissue heals and stops hurting eventually but you see them constantly until you learn to stop noticing.   Once it heals though it doesn’t open up again.  That just doesn’t seem quite right to me as an analogy.  Instead I realized that all my past hurts, betrayals, cheating and manipulations are like torn muscles and ligaments.  You have to stop exercising those muscles and let them heal—a process that has no treatment plan but time.  The pain fades and you’re able to eventually use them again BUT the wound might never heal all the way.  Put your foot down the wrong way during a run and that old ankle injury flares up all over again.  I saw a photo a few nights ago that did just that.  The biggest problem with these kinds of injuries is that repeated wounds to the same ligament/tendon/whatever will eventually make it impossible to heal.  It could be that’s why tonight I’m feeling a little bit lonelier than I normally would.  I have to wonder if I’ve just pulled this muscle one too many times for it to ever work right again.  I think I want it to.  I just don’t know that it can.

Meanwhile I might not have a hunk of man cake in the house, but I do have my hot toddy in cake form and that’s pretty damn good too.

Hot Toddy Cheesecake

An Olivia Original Read more

Feb 26

1 Comment

Think Thin Tuesday: Salad for Bone-heads (shoulders, knees and toes!)

Do you ever have those moments of realizing something that shakes your world, makes you sit back and say “well, fuck.”

This summer I’ll be turning 25 which in all honesty is still a very young age.  My ovaries aren’t about to cough up their last egg.  My hair isn’t near turning grey though to be honest I’ll never know when it does thanks to an amazing hair stylist.  I may already have a few wrinkles from frowning too much but they aren’t age related…yet.  Aside from an old ankle injury and a bundle of tight nerves I am in pretty good physical health.

But 25 is ¼ of 100; even if I live to be 100, I will have lived a quarter of my life already.  That’s a bigger chunk of the pie chart than pac-man’s mouth.  PacMan has eaten 25% of my life.  Well, fuck.  Plus 25, well that’s when things really official start to slow down.  The metabolism of your youth is not going to be nearly as reliable when you eat that second donut.  Bones aren’t storing any additional calcium you get into your diet.  Your body in general is going to start losing that springy bounce-back-ability from nights of partying.  In short: it’s time to grow up kid and start thinking about making sure that you are able to enjoy the next 50 years in good health.

As a woman one of the things I need to worry about especially is the calcium issue.  A lot of us get the “Got Milk” message in our youth and there’s a lot of emphasis placed around getting calcium for growing bones.  Did you know that’s not JUST about the initial growth phase though?  True you need to make sure you have this vital nutrient to get big and strong but it’s actually also about making sure you get an influx of calcium to store in those bones—to last you the rest of your life.  Around your mid-twenties your body stops storing calcium in your bones.  Around your 30’s you start to lose bone density—you start losing calcium.  It’s caused by a lack of exercise (which reinforces and strengthens not only muscle but bone) and it is exacerbated by a lack of sufficient calcium absorption in your diet.

Oh and do you know what else studies are revealing causes a breakdown of bone density?  Soft drinks.  Soda.  The December 2008 American Journal of Clinical Nutrition reported that long term soft drink consumption had a strong correlation with bone loss.  Mom thank you so much for keeping us from drinking coca-cola growing up.  I owe you.

The reason your body starts to lose calcium is because your heart needs calcium to work.  Calcium plays a pivotal role in some cellular functions and I will try not to bore you to tears with the details.  Basically in order to move certain chemicals in/out of your cells your body needs calcium to open a drawbridge of sorts.  If your body isn’t absorbing enough from your diet, which it gets worse and worse at doing as you age, it starts to seek elsewhere for this resource.  Guess where?  That’s right.  Your bones.  t, that big scary word that we always see old ladies talking about on TV is essentially the result of your body mining your bones for precious calcium and leaving them porous and weakened.  Women have it especially bad because the hormonal hell that is menopause also contributes to bone loss.

Thankfully there are a few things that really can help fight this off.  Regular exercise will keep your bones strong and encourage calcium uptake from your diet.  Running, hiking, weight lifting and anything that involves surface impact will help.  Unfortunately from what I’ve read activities that are better for the joints (i.e. swimming) are less helpful in this regard.  So try to vary your physical activity but ultimately any workout is better than none.  There are also foods you can eat to help you retain bone density.  Fermented foods and Fennel are especially good for you.  Of course getting calcium into your body isn’t about just eating calcium.  Our bodies usually require a delicate balance of various macro and micronutrients to successfully integrate the benefits from each.  Calcium is much better utilized for example, when your meal is also high in potassium, magnesium and vitamins D&K.  This is why it is still so, so much better to get nutrition from your food rather than a pill.  Nature has designed her vegetables and fruits with our bodies partly in mind.

So here is one of my favorite slaws to eat with a meal.  It’s got a ton of fiber and heart helping vegetables, in addition to being low calorie and full of healthy fats, and it tastes amazing.

Celery Root, Fennel Apple Salad

Adapted from a recipe published in Bon Apetit Feb2010 Read more

Jan 24

4 Comments

What me germy?

Ah late January.  The peak of flu and cold season.  My office is a cesspool of snifflers, coughers and tummy-achers and I can only suppose that many of you are experiencing the same thing.  Some of you might be sick yourselves and not even know it yet.  DUN DUN DUNNNNNNNNNNNNNN.  Did you get your flu shot yet?  I know that the buzz is that this season is the worst in years…but doesn’t it kind of seem like they say that every year?  I stopped keeping track.  It used to be unimportant because I knew I would get sick regardless of anything I did—chronic bronchitis was a fact of my life—but now that I’m actually entering the first full year of my life lung-infection free, I find myself wanting to know these things again.  I’m tempted to get the flu shot but at the same time I’m afraid to disrupt the delicate balance my immune system seems to have achieved.  Like the clock said “If it isn’t Baroque, don’t fix it—ahahahaha” **TRIVIA TIME: name the movie that line is from and the name of the character who said it to win a prize.**

With that in mind it occurs to me that folks still might not know the difference between bacterial and viral infections.  I forget that not everyone was awake during biology in high school, and since my field of work is in the medical field, I also forget that few people are exposed to this kind of information past those adolescent years.  For those of you who do know this distinction, well this post will be something of a DUH for you.  For those of you who would say HUH about this topic, please try to keep your eyes open.  I really think it’s useful knowledge—I mean everyone gets sick eventually and don’t you want to know about the things that are going on inside your own body?  Of course you do!  If you don’t then you should because knowledge is power and staying healthy requires at least a basic rudimentary course in all things micro-organic.

What is the difference between bacteria and a virus?

Bacteria are living organisms capable, typically, of functioning entirely independent of the human host.  They are single celled organisms with their own DNA and reproductive cycles.  They live in all sorts of environments, including some extreme locations like the inside of volcanos, radioactive waste, frozen glaciers and inside of YOU.  Thankfully not all of these microscopic buggers are bad and in fact many of them are essential to keeping the delicate digestive balance in an array of animal life on the planet.  The bad bacteria however can really mess you up.  A bacterial infection occurs when one of these bad boys gets comfy somewhere in or on your body and begins to reproduce at a rapid rate.  These suckers make you sick with the byproducts of their growth, the breakdown of your body to feed them, and generally overwhelming your body with their numbers.  Since these organisms exist independent of your own bodily organs and cells, the way to eliminate the infection is to eradicate the invaders.  Antibiotics serve this purpose.  There are a number of types of antibiotics that are essentially little weaponized pills that target and destroy some aspect of the bacteria’s biology.  Penicillin, as an example, acts by disrupting the cell wall structure in bacterial cells.  Breaking down the cell walls causes the bacteria to die.  Antibiotic resistance is something that occurs when bacteria evolve and lose or modify the specific trait our antibiotics target.  For example if the bacteria strain previously susceptible to penicillin evolve to exist without cell walls will then be resistant to the drug and it would no longer work to kill them.  When you stop taking antibiotics before all the bacteria are killed you increase the likelihood of this kind of resistance happening.  Evolution is not a magical response to the drug—for example the bacteria being targeted won’t suddenly lose its cell wall.  Instead it is one of the subsequent generations, maybe the original bacterial’s great great great great grand-cell, which will have its DNA copied over incorrectly resulting in a mutation that causes it to lose the cell wall.  This is why it is so essential to finish your antibiotics.  Even if you are feeling better, there may be a few lonely bacterial cells wandering in your system.  They will continue to reproduce and over time may produce a freak of nature that is resistant to your drugs.  So finish that bottle and kill every last sucker!

A virus is an entirely different creature and in fact is still debated as to whether or not it can be considered “alive” or not.  A virus does not exist without a host.  A virus is essentially just a protein, a line of DNA, which hijacks your cells and causes them to stop producing your DNA and start producing the viral DNA.  Once your cell is hijacked it starts producing more cells that also code the viral DNA and continue to multiply and divide.  Since it’s your own cell that is now working against your body designing a medication to target and eradicate is a problem.  You’d need some way to distinguish between the viral cell and your healthy cell.  This can be extremely hard to do, especially when viruses multiply so quickly and evolve at a rapid rate.  Since the virus actually interacts with the host DNA it can incorporate and change more quickly.  Our immune systems are still the best at targeting and destroying the invaders provided they can act quickly enough and learn what the virus looks like.  So you might be wondering then: what is a flu shot?  It’s actually a shot of the virus.  Typically a dead version of the virus, though weakened live versions called “attenuated” vaccines, are becoming more common.  The whole point is to introduce your body to the virus so it can learn to recognize it and eradicate it should you ever come into contact again in the future.  This is why occasionally someone who gets a flu shot actually winds up getting sick.  Their body didn’t get the memo for some reason that it should be killing this weakened virus which then manages to just infect the person and get them sick.

Now bear in mind, those of you who are biopeople, that this is a very high level, low detail and generalized explanation.  I’m already broaching the two page mark and I don’t want to overload my readers and scare them off with big words or boring textbook rants.  Especially since I know most of you come here for the yummies and not the germies.

Well what about GERMY YUMMIES?  A different kind of germ: wheat germ!

These were the prize for my last trivia question which was won by Chelsea in LA – she was the first to note that my “Joey for Jam” was a reference to Joey from the show Friends who goes totally bonkers for the homemade jam brewed up by Monica.  I’ve always felt that of the characters on that show, I’m the most like Monica.  Jewish.  Battle of the binge and bulge.  Type A.  Cleans to distress.  Loves to cook and bake.  Always griping about people using coasters.  Oh yeah.  Definitely the Monica.

I really like these cookies.  They have a nice lemon-honey flavor and a wholesome look/texture thanks to the incorporation of wheat germ.  You might even feel like you’re eating something good for you since wheat germ is the part of wheat that is high in vitamins and fiber.  Typically it gets removed from white breads in the milling process because it produces a slightly grittier texture when left intact.  These cookies get a healthy load of the wheat germ both in the batter and sprinkled on top before baking.  So you can eat them and feel satisfied that on top of the bad for you sugar/fats, you’re also getting folic acid, vitamin e, zinc and some magnesium.  Who knows, they might even help you fight off a cold this season!  They definitely remind me a little of cup of hot lemon tea which I always associate with this time of year and sniffles.

Honey Wheat Germ Cookies

From Dorie Greenspan’s “Baking from my home to yours” Read more

Jan 16

1 Comment

Hipster to be squared

Oh oh oh Mr. Darcy
oh oh oh Colin Firth
you wily old bastard, you wonderful specimen
you’ve messed up the hearts of young girls round the earth

lemonbars (12)How many of you subscribe to the cliché that women only like jerks?  Whether you are a woman who loves jerks or a man who thinks this is true—go on admit it, it’s okay to say you do.  The truth is a lot of women do wind up with complete assholes but it’s not an unavoidable situation and it’s also not nearly so confusing to know why we do.  I’m happy to observe that for the most part, people follow up that statement now with an acknowledgement that it isn’t really jerks women go for.  It’s confident men.  The problem is that bravado is often conflated with confidence and indeed it can be hard to tell the difference in some of the more clever bastards out there.

Or it’s all Mr. Darcy’s fault.

This past weekend I was thrilled to find out that a band I first heard at Comic Con last year would be playing in Oakland.  The DoubleClicks!  Oh yes a sister group playing folk music themed entirely around geek culture.  Playing at a store I didn’t even know existed—a store entirely dedicated to table top gaming and they host game nights.  Holy Stan Lee—Batman!  This was a most excellent discovery on both fronts.  Fairfield, the cultural wasteland that serves as a bathroom stop along the way to Sacramento, is not the place where you will find an awesome convergence of supreme nerdgasmry.  Oakland by contrast is definitely not lacking for culture.  Sure certain areas might have a bit too much—gangs and worse, hipsters, roam the streets freely.  I’m not sure which one scares me more but regardless I’ve been trying hard to avoid totally binging on Oakland’s options for nightlife.  Remember this year’s goal: balance.  I have this extremely bad habit of overloading myself so I need to be sure to not take on too many things at once.

lemonbars (14)

Yes you could say I’m a little excited…but how does this relate back to my original topic?  I’m getting there, I’m getting there!

The DoubleClicks, in case you haven’t heard of them, are these adorable girls who sing music that will delight both your more traditional geek of yore and have a few great songs thrown in for the English geek in your life.  If like me you are both, then you need to check out their music.  I have to say they first ensnared me with “I fell in love with a Spock impersonator” though currently the song I find myself singing most in the shower is “Oh Mr. Darcy”  As a side note, I keep having this thought recently about how Worf reminds me a bit of Mr. Darcy.  Tall, dark, gruff, obsessed with family status and propriety, a fondness for opera and secretly capable of being quite caring….  I can’t believe I never saw it before.  Star Trek meets Victorian lit.  Come on, someone tell me this fanfic exists somewhere.  No?  Argh okay I guess I have to write it then.

lemonbars (10)When I first saw his furrowed brow
I knew the ideal man had come and found me somehow
I mean, what else could I think
When he looked me in the eyes and told me prune juice is a warriors drink

I fell in love with a Worf impersonator
from his forehead to his baldric and his badge communicator
I thought my search for love was at an end
but being strong and angry did not make him a very good boyfriend

I’ve got to admit that while I enjoyed Jane Austin’s masterpiece, it’s not where I turned for all my ideas about love.  I do know a number of girls who would say that it is—but I found myself swooning over other jerks as a wee lass.  Most notably Rhett Butler.  You want to talk about idealizing an asshole.  Oh “Gone with the Wind” you not only made me fall in love with a man who is a complete jerk but set me up to romanticize tragic, tortured love affairs.  Thankfully I had “Anne of Green Gables” to balance me out a bit.  Gilbert Blythe may have been a schoolyard bully at first, but he’s probably the most anti-jerk romantic figure I’ve ever gone to bed with.

lemonbars (2)I meant that I read the book in bed you pervs.  Sheesh.

But anyway these ladies are very clever…and witty…and pretty…and sweet!  Oh so sweet.  I got their CD, signatures and absolutely awful photos for which I entirely blame the photo taker and not the fact that I look completely HAGGARD.  Anyway check out the links above or their website here:
http://www.thedoubleclicks.com/
 They are TRUE geeks too.  None of this hipster nonsense.   I get extremely angry actually when people want to lump anyone now who looks like a nerd as a hipster. Urgh like the doubleclick song says:

You love my nerdy glasses — but I need them to see
and it’s not a matter of image that I got a job at the library
no I actually like star trek that was not supposed to be funny
and I’m not pretending when I act like I don’t have any money

Speaking to my soul!  I wear corrective lenses!  I worked in a library all throughout highschool and college!  I LOVE STAR TREK!  Stupid hipsters.

Meanwhile should you find yourself sitting down to tea with your Mr. Worf Darcy anytime soon, you’ll need something to serve to that stalwart and gruff object of your affections and what goes better with tea than…Lemon Squares.  This recipe is kind of a combination of a few recipes I’ve used in the past.  I was looking to use up some lemon curd and had a batch of some pecan shortbread cookie dough waiting for utilization.  Not hard to draw the most logical conclusion.

Lemon Squares

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and prepare an 8 x 8 inch cake pan with non-stick spray, butter or line with parchment paper.

Press the cookie dough into the base of the pan and bake for approximately 10-12 minutes.  This will partially pre-bake the dough but you don’t want to bake it all the way through.  Remove and let cool.

Meanwhile whisk the lemon curd with the egg, lemon zest and juice.  Spread over the cooled crust and return to the oven to bake for another 15 minutes.  Remove and let cool fully before dusting with powdered sugar and slicing into squares.

Nov 27

Think Thin Tuesday: Eat to cure what Kales you

“Every time you eat or drink, you are either feeding disease or fighting it.”  Heather Morgan – MS, NLC

I saw that quote on pinterest the other day and immediately printed it out and pinned it up at my desk at work.  I love how simple and succinct it is—and true.  More than anything else I like how it manages to sum up an entire philosophy in one little sentence.  What you fuel your body with extends far past your taste buds—the food you eat does affect your physical, emotional and mental health.  For some reason Americans have become a society of people who don’t want to be bothered to take more than two minutes to think about what they eat but we’ll spend hours or weeks researching our gadgets, wardrobes or car purchases.  We’ve become a culture of convenience when it comes to the stuff that we physically put inside our bodies but if it has Bluetooth, boys, then we pay attention.

We don’t learn it at home—there’s no time in busy households with working parents.  We don’t learn it at school—budget cuts and a cultural bias to push students toward “intellectual” pursuits rather than skill based coursework.  Does anyone have auto shop anymore?  As a new car owner I’m realizing how important those kinds of basic skills would be but they were always seen as classes for the “less intelligent” and “not-college bound” echelons of high school.

This is very, very wrong.  It needs to change. What you choose to ingest WILL affect your entire health from psychology to cardiovascular disease to cancer to emotional stress management.  High sugar, high fat diets promoted by fast food (McDonald’s, Taco Bell etc.) and chain restaurants (Chili’s, TGIF etc.) are making you sick.  If you put premium fuel in your car at the pump but scarf down on a doughnut for breakfast evaluate those choices and realize how eating well is the same thing as putting quality fuel in your vehicle.  It will not only be higher quality food but it is designed to keep your parts working better, longer, and healthier.

The first step toward making the change is education and I hope I haven’t lost you so far with my ranting and rambling.  Let’s tackle perhaps the most reviled fuel source for our bodies and yet one of the most super-charged foods out there: Kale.  More specifically raw kale.  I’m going to tell you WHY it’s so damn good for you and give you a recipe that will have you happy to eat it.  Ready?

Kale is from the Mediterranean branch of the cabbage family, Brassica oleracea, and described by noted Food Expert Harold McGee as a “formidable chemical warrior” with “strong flavors.”  Strong is a nice way to put it.  Depending on the variety, Kale can be extremely bitter and off-putting to a sugar addicted palate.  It will take some getting used to; I’m not going to deny that.  If you’ve spent the majority of your life where the greenest thing you ate were peas from a can and usually poured into a casserole this is not going to be a vegetable you jump into munching on solo.

The good news is that these bitter flavor compounds, called glucosinolates, are also key indicators of micronutrients and chemicals that are effective cancer fighters.  Depending on how you process your kale you can intensify or mute these flavors…of course all the tricks that mute them also cause some of the nutrients to leach out of your food.  Thankfully with over 20 valuable vitamins/minerals in concentrations ranging from 3 to 1000% of your DV—you don’t have to worry about it too much.  Yes you read that right.  1 cup of cooked Kale has over 1000% of your daily intake for Vitamin K and over 350% for Vitamin A.   It also has almost an entire day’s worth of Vitamin C.  Other minerals include: manganese, fiber, copper, calcium, B6, potassium (hard to get in your diet), iron, magnesium, vitamin E, vitamin B2, vitamin B1, folate, phosphorus and vitamin B3.  It even has about 5% of your daily intake of protein.  As for those bad flavor compounds?  Well you might find it a little easier to swallow when you find out that those compounds are directly responsible for being converted into cancer fighting agents through digestion.  They’ve been shown to help prevent: colon, breast, bladder, prostate and ovarian cancers.  Some of the nastiest, most deadly kinds around.

I include a recipe for a dressing for this salad. I actually made a quadruple batch of it to keep for the future because my mom loved it.

One of the best preparation methods is dehydration but that requires special equipment and we aren’t going to get into that today.  Steaming as a preparation method for Kale will actually increase its power to reduce your cholesterol levels because the process of steaming causes the fiber components of Kale to knit together and provide superior power to its raw form.  The fiber in Kale will bind to bile acids present in your intestine and draw them out.  Your body will need to replenish these bile acids and will consume cholesterol—specifically the bad cholesterol to do so.  Supposedly one serving of Kale does about 42% of the work of a traditional statin drug—beaten out only by collard greens for top cholesterol fighting prowess at 46%.Steaming is actually going to be the ideal way to prepare Kale but today we’re going raw.  Yup I’m going to immerse you in the flavor world of Kale and you’re gonna like, nay, love it.  No really you will.  My mom loathes raw kale and didn’t realize she was eating it until I told her.  “Wait, this is kale that’s RAW?  And I like it?  OH MY GOD” followed by many nomnomnoms.

Kale Brussels Salad w/Creamy Honey Dijon Dressing

an Olivia Original Read more

Nov 9

SciFriday: (Lemon-Sage) Chicken Good

One of my all-time favorite scifi films is The Fifth Element.    Who amongst us doesn’t echo “Leeloo Dallas Multipass” whenever we’re asked for identification?  Oh?  Just me?

Damn.  Oh well.  Thought I wasn’t crazy weird for once.

This movie, along with Back to the Future and a few others, is one of my “pause when scrolling” films.  That’s what call any film that I will go ahead and watch for the umpteenth time when I notice it listed on tv guide if I’m scrolling through looking for something to watch. If you haven’t seen this movie it’s one you should go out and rent immediately.    I mean let’s just look at the cast billing: Bruce Willis (in his action movie prime), Chris Tucker (before he got boring), Gary Oldman (THE MOST TALENTED ACTOR ON THE PLANET) and a young Milla Jovovich as the supreme being of the universe.  It manages to capture the campy spirit of some classic Scifi while still retaining a solid storyline, witty one-liners “anyone else want to negotiate?” and it’s holding up exceedingly well to the passage of time.  Now I’ll admit the ending is a little cheesy.  The giant floating planetary ball of eeeeeevil (trust me it makes more sense than it sounds) is a bit of a stretch but it works and you overlook that because Gary Oldman manages to make Zorg just so damn creepifying.   In part because his little logic rant in the middle of the movie, about chaos being needed in the world, kind of makes a little sense and don’t you just love it when villians get under your skin that way?  Also sexual innuendo via space shuttle launch?  I mean come on.

One of my future cosplay goals, part of why I’ve been working my butt off to get in shape, is Leeloo Dallas.  Shouldn’t be a big shock.  Kick ass heroine: check.  Cool, identifying wardrobe: check.  Accessories to make it an epic cosplay: check.  The only problem is that after seeing Adrienne Curry, a woman whose body defies all laws of gravity and fat distribution, cosplay as Leeloo two years ago I feel like I’d never live up to it.  Damn perfectionism getting the best of me.  Oh and no, I’m not going to be donning the more memorable costume aka the thermal bandages.  Ya know, I always knew those were a bit wow moment in the film, but for many years I really had no idea that men always summed up THAT image when discussing the film.  I always thought of her orange suspenders as a more iconic piece of The 5th Element universe.  Thermal bandages would be an easier cosplay to do but jeeeeze talk about body image problems.  Plus I don’t want to get raped so I guess  the slightly less memorable outfit will work just fine for me.  If I ever get over my Adrienne Curry inferiority complex that is.

Of course, when it comes to dining, the most memorable scene is of Leeloo fueling her newly awakened/reconstructed body.  “Chicken Good” is a phrase that as a geek you’ve either repeated when eating or as a non-geek, maybe heard someone say and had no idea what they were talking about.  Non geeks: I’m not reverting to caveman-esque ramblings fueled by hunger when I say that.  It’s from an early scene in the film when Leeloo is discovering human food (and the English language) for the first time after her body is reconstructed from a few cells.   She pulls out a second whole chicken, after devouring the first, and utters those oft quoted words before ripping into another chicken leg.  When I get home from work on days that I do Bikram in the evening, it’s usually around 9PM and I have to admit that the other day I attacked a chicken I’d roasted earlier in much the same way.  I’m always cold after Bikram because my body gets adjusted to that hot room.   As I sat huddled up in sweats for warmth, chicken leg in hand and stared at my computer screen, scrolling through my reader, it occurred to me that all I needed was short shaggy orange hair to complete the scene.  Thus I am officially declaring this roast chicken recipe I’d slapped together THE CHICKEN GOOD recipe.

It’s perfect, it’s simple, and it yields a nice small chicken with a buttery crisp skin and lots of homey, classic flavor.  If you use a smaller bird, like I did, you don’t even need to brine it. 

Chicken Good – Lemon Sage Buttered Chicken
An Olivia Original (and stupidly simple!) Read more

Sep 4

1 Comment

Think Thin Tuesday – If veggies could kill….

I yelled at my stepdad last night.  I think he’s still mad at me about it.

It’s funny how death affects us.

I’m not the type to get hung up on celebrity deaths usually.  When Ray Bradbury died it really caught me but for the most part I think “that’s sad but I didn’t know them” and then move along.   Michael Clark Duncan died Monday from a heart attack…at the age of 54.  Clark was this hulking, athletic man.  His career was his body/health and he died from a heart attack.   It’s strange to see someone who seems so strong die so young.   Then I yelled at my stepfather for not eating his vegetables.  I got erratically angry about it actually.  Like I said, funny how death affects us.

See last night for dinner my mother made sliders for the family.   They are delicious but I usually abstain from eating more than half of one.  Why?  The rolls she serves them on are to die for…literally.  They are completely devoid of nutrition but extremely high in calories.  The sliders themselves get cooked in their own grease and have just tons of fat.  When you tack on cheese and sauces…well two of those suckers is easily 1000 calories of a meal alone.  That’s precisely how many my stepdad made for himself along with a couple of small smashed potatoes I had cooked up.  The potatoes were probably almost nothing compared to the sliders but still that meal was all starch and fat with a little bit of protein.  Not heart healthy and Dad needs to be watching his heart….seriously, doctor’s orders and all that.

I had steamed up a huge smorgasbord of vegetables to substantiate most of my meal for the evening.  It was an impressive display actually.  Bell peppers, yellow summer squash, green summer squash, gypsy peppers, mushrooms, green onion, and purple cauliflower (anthocyan-win!)  There was so much color on that plate and such variety of noms!  Color and variety are the best indicators that you are getting a spread of vitamins, minerals and anti-oxidants.  Plus I love steamed vegetables–you can get just the right level of cooked to crisp and retain far more of the good stuff than pan cooking or boiling.

While steaming these I decided to make a sauce.  I can eat pretty much any sort of vegetable completely plain, just a pinch of salt and pepper, and be happy.  My stepdad and brothers?  Not so much.  Okay that’s fine, I can get that.  Plain vegetables really are an acquired taste.  No one walks around craving broccoli; though your body will crave the minerals it needs from veggies.  There have been days when I genuinely desire some lettuce or mushrooms.   I’m straying from the point.  Okay so I made a lemony-mustard cream sauce that really wasn’t bad for you at all, with enough flavor that you only needed a drizzle and voila!  Edible Vegetables.  I had made the sauce as an afterthought and it took me almost no time to do, but I did in the hopes of making the experience of eating ”rabbit food” pleasant for the menfolk of the house.  I didn’t make it for myself because like I said, totally happy with just a pinch of salt and pepper.

My stepdad passed on the vegetables completely.  I asked why and he said he wasn’t that hungry…with two sliders on his plate.  I got irritated.  It’s wise not to over eat if you aren’t that hungry, but that doesn’t mean you get to cut out the healthy part of your dinner to make room for the bad stuff.  It means you reduce the size of the entire meal.  In this case that would simply mean replace one serving of fat and bread with the veggies.  Same amount of food but an entirely better for you plate with fewer calories from fat and way more nutrition.  The more I thought about it the angrier I got until I got up halfway through dinner and started to dump vegetables on his plate.

I know.  Wrong way to go about it.  You can’t force a mind but I was just so mad that he was snubbing my efforts to make the experience more pleasant.  I didn’t HAVE to make that damn sauce.   Not to mention the death of Michael Clark had only popped up on my news feed an hour before.  All I could think was “how?”  How could my Step-father not be trying to take better care of himself?  It’s not cute to be a grown man with genuine health concerns being picky about food.  EAT YOUR DAMN VEGETABLES.  Still I went about it the wrong way and then I got even angrier when he finally broke down, took a spoonful of greens—literally a single manly sized bite— and then TWO spoonfuls of sauce to pour over them.  I stormed off to my mother who was in her room and ranted for a good five minutes.  Also not the best choice in this situation but it was either that or burst into very non-grownup like, irrational tears.   When I came downstairs my Dad went up and that’s the last I’ve heard from him since the exchange.

Sometimes when I see people wasting their healthy bodies by eating crap, and I mean crap, I get insulted.  So many are born disfigured, disadvantaged or disabled and would be so much better to themselves if given the simple blessing of good health.   When I think about that, it seems almost disrespectful to let good bodies sour by fueling them with Taco Bell and sugary soft drinks.  In those moments when I’m feeling hypercritical, I see people do that all I can think is “you don’t deserve it.”  You don’t deserve to throw away this healthy body you take for granted when someone else would so lovingly care for it.  I would never advocate forcing anyone to do anything.  I’m not about to say we should force people to be healthy and I know that part of being a firm believer in free-choice and freedom is letting people waste their lives if they so choose.  It’s just harder to not be bothered by this sort of thing when you care about the person.  If a total stranger were sitting at my table and didn’t eat the vegetables I wouldn’t care about it nearly as much.  Then again I’m not hoping that total stranger will be around for my wedding someday (if I have one) or grandchildren or great grand-children….

And I know I’m probably not helping matters by writing about my bad behavior and this situation here on the internet for all to see.  I promise to try not to throw this sort of tantrum again.  At the very least I should have pulled out the Jewish guilt.  “But Daddy, why are you trying to kill yourself before I get married?  Who’s going to walk me down the aisle?” would have been more subtle and that’s still roughly equivalent to putting a bull in a china shop.  It’s just that…well Clark was eating healthy, active and only 4 years older.  4 years.  He was this actor who despite a huge, imposing stature just seemed to exude a jovial and kindness.  He was the kind of super-sized figure all kids see their fathers as.  It’s how we want to continue to see our fathers.

Fuck.   Now all my friends are probably going to be afraid to ever eat around me.  I promise I’m not like this all the time guys and I don’t begrudge the well-earned junk food binge.  Lord knows I have a pig out day once in a while.  It’s just that with some people, every day becomes a “cheat” day and then pretty soon you’re only just cheating the inevitable heart attack.  This past weekend we’d already been to a crab feed, I’d baked a cake and fresh English muffins…it was time to end the cheating and I’d tried so hard to make it pleasant to do so.  But here I am justifying my tantrum again.  *sigh*

Steamed Rainbow Veggies w/Lemon-Mustard Cream Dressing

An Olivia Original – Makes 4 servings of side veggies; 2 for a main meal Read more

Aug 26

3 Comments

Sunny Side Uppers

As an introvert something I always struggle with at work, and often times in life, is the need to constantly be “up.”  I’ve found at work that if I don’t make sure to invest at least part of my energy in appearing chipper and upbeat, I will get a dozen comments about how tired I look or how down I appear.  These comments come from a place of concern from coworkers, I’m sure that’s what it is, but I find them annoying.  It seems like what they are really saying is “You look like crap” and indeed I have heard those literal words at least twice in my office.  I know they are just words but I’m a girl and I’m vain okay?  I don’t like hearing someone telling me I look bad.

“You look tired” or “You look upset” always comes coupled with the expectation that I will then want to talk about it.  Oh god.  Please stop.  If I am tired or upset odds are I just want to be left alone to get through my work and deal with it.  I’ll seek out help if I need it.  If I’m NOT actually tired or upset then it’s really aggravating because again see the “vain girl” comment in the last paragraph.  I have slightly purple coloring under my eyes no matter how much sleep I get at night but if I don’t make sure I’m a bundle of unbounded energy I will often get accused of being exhausted.  The worst is when I counter with a response that I’m fine and then the person I’m speaking to will insist that I must be lying. Excuse me but now I’m getting insulted.  Why in the world would I lie to you?  Just let me alone about how I look and talk to me about the task at hand.  Odds are THAT will brighten me up.

You know I’ve actually had one person insist that I was on the verge of tears one day.  I wasn’t.  I wasn’t even close.  I don’t know where the heck that came from.  Now every once in a while I’ll see this person and he’ll ask “no tears today right?”  Dude.  I was never crying.  I’ve cried at work ONE time and that was when someone I worked with wrote an intensely kind email singing my praises.  It was a happy little tearing up and I know it wasn’t witnessed so what the FRAK are you talking about??

My ex once asked why I wear so much makeup to work.  I explained it’s because without it, I look pale and people think I’m tired.  I also have to try to cover up that slight discoloration.  Plus the act of putting on makeup is kind of like a ritual for me; it’s my war paint.  The ritual helps me get into yet another one of my many versions of myself.  It’s a little frustrating actually to know that I have to expend energy I could direct toward doing my work into appearing to be “Sunny Side Up Olivia.”

I wish I could just explain to people that yes there are days when yes I am tired, or maybe I’m a little frustrated, and I just want to be able to be quiet and keep to myself.  I need to be in a funk or a bad mood.  I think it’s healthy for people to process their emotions honestly.  I don’t go banging on table tops or breaking windows with baseball bats.  I’m not going to hunt down a coworker and rake them over the coals for something.  I just want to be allowed to have some time to myself, do my work and blow off steam.  Especially since actually getting work done will lift my spirits whereas having to constantly interact and pretend at being something I’m not will only drag me down….

It’s a large part of why I bake.  I love going into the kitchen, having time to myself and churning out a physical product.  I don’t even care about eating the stuff after the fact.  I just find the act of creating something to be incredibly soothing.  The other night after a particularly emotionally upsetting exchange I knew I should go to bed, it was already past 10:30, but I decided the hour spent making these cookies would do me more good than the sleep I was sacrificing to make them.  I’m glad I did because these were super tasty.  I think 4 people at work sought me out for the recipe when I brought them in.  I made the cookies rather generously portioned….  Dorie claims you can get about 60 1 tsp servings.  I made 15 whopping cookies using a muffin scoop instead.  Dorie filled hers with jams…I filled mine with lemon curd.  They looked remarkably like happy, sunny side up eggs and that’s how I felt when I was done with them.

Sunny Side Uppers

Adapted Thumbprint Cookies from “Baking from my home to yours” Dorie Greenspan Read more

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