Totally redeemed myself for disaster breakfast. All in a day's work.

I don't know why poor people go vegetarian or eat such crap food.

Dinner tonight for 2 people:  $4.35

$3.00 = Delicious, tender, fall-of-the-bone pork ribs for 2 people ($9/3 since we only ate a third of it; also used slow cooker on high for 5 hours because they were still kind of frozen)

$0.50 = Half a bottle of Kraft Chick'n Rib BBQ sauce used to marinate ribs

$0.10 = Russet potatoes with butter ($0.88/20)

$0.75 = half broccoli bunch

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I say suck it, Swiss Chalet, because that same meal would have cost me something like $15 + tax + tip.

I get really annoyed when "baked potato" is a side option at restaurants.  I'll take the fries because at least I know more labour went into making that than wrapping the potato in foil and flinging it the oven, only for me to dress it up by myself.  I also get annoyed with restaurants that serve ordinary, every day pasta.  It's like art: if I can do it myself, I'm not impressed.  

 

I was going to put a list of really cheap foods that fill you up here, but really, it only boiled down to how I get SUPER ANNOYED at seeing TV shows about obese people in trailer parks.  I just don't understand it.  If you're that big, and eating that much food, then I think you've got way too much disposable income to live in a trailer.  

If you don't have a job, first thing you cut is car and TV cable. So you should spent a lot of time outdoors and walking to wherever you want to go. 

If there's very little space in the trailer, you'd probably have to do a daily grocery run to replenish your supplies.  Even if you drove there, you'd have to at least walk in the grocery store!

You'd probably also want to make your clothing last longer, so if you knew that you could fit two of you into a shirt and make that shirt into two, or use that obese shirt as a towel, that's sort of motivation to lose weight there.

And if you don't have a job, and have bills to pay, then you're probably pretty stressed out, and then the combination of drinking, nervous fidgeting, chain smoking and stress would make you lose weight.  Right?

Yeah ... I just don't get it.  Maybe obese people are just shipped in for those particular episodes.  Unless you say, "You've literally eaten us out of house and home."  Hmm ...

I get all this because I watched one episode of Wife Swap. It just happened to be on ABC when I'd finished watching something on the PVR, and it was like a mesmerizing train wreck.  I couldn't look away.  This obese woman lived with her family in a trailer park with her husband and two sons.  She swapped with this perky family of entrepreneurs where the mom was really into self-affirmations and positive thinking.  The whole family was into salads and exercise, and lived in quite a large house.  So in one challenge, the moms had to prepare the other mom's recipe for a typical dinner.  Obese Mom had a recipe using a whole stick of butter and some pretty super fatty stuff.  And for that segment, I just thought, "Hunh.  Butter's kind of expensive when you use that kind of quantity all the time."

OH ... I almost forgot to tell you that Butternut Squash Latkes Attempt #3 went alright.  Made smaller patties, squashed them down in a smaller frying pan, and letting them set in the fridge helps to maintain the shape until cooking.

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In case you're reading this as a separate page and got separated from the post two minutes afterwards:

I should clarify here that when you read the previous post, it is NOT that I have a dislike of big/overweight people in general. 

But food-related obesity in people other than chefs FREAKS ME OUT.  

With chefs, you can't always trust a skinny one.  With medically-related obesity, patients can't help that.  With food-related obesity, I just want to tell people to walk the fucking 10 minutes to work instead of driving for 1 minute.  Seen it, true story.


(I actually am trying to prevent obesity in this household.  My workout today was substituted with cleaning.  It made me sweat, and I called it a day.)

Ugh, disastrous breakfast

I've sent hubby on a play date with a friend of mine, thinking that he needs more male friends, and this would be good bonding.  I shouldn't say "play date", but they've gone to play video games for a solid three hours at Playdium so that takes care of "play" and it's Sunday, June 13, so that takes care of "date."  First person shooters make me dizzy, so it was best that they take the three-hour play cards and go crazy.

Thinking that I'd give him a good breakfast before he went off, I decided to fry up some bacon and butternut squash latkes, to be served with a dollop of sour cream.  (I know, bacon, how un-Jewish.)

Anyway ... breakfast culminated in disaster.

Hubby is actually quite polite when it comes to terrible food that I've made.  I think it's because he knows that if I get discouraged with it, I'll just keep making boring stuff, and then the culinary adventures will cease altogether.  So unfortunately, I used this recipe, and then bungled it, and then when I fixed it, I just found that the recipe itself was bunk.  

So it called for 4 cups butternut squash (peeled and grated), 3 eggs (whisked), and a small onion (peeled and grated), then grapeseed oil for frying.  You basically had to mix the first three ingredients together, make patties from the batter, and then fry them up.

Ugh, disgusting.

Granted, I put WAY too much butternut squash into this giant mix, so there wasn't enough egg mixture the first time around.  The patties just wouldn't stay together, but hubby was starving last night and wanted to start dinner, so I quickly made a butternut squash hash, which didn't get crispy, and was kind of just ... mush.  BLEGH.

So this morning, I thought that I'd be brilliant and add panko (Japanese bread crumbs), which would give the egg something to stick to.  I learnt this from my chef friend Miriam while working as a Writer/Researcher on Taste Buds (http://www.TasteBudsTV.com).

After adding what seemed like 2 cups of panko to this horrible mixture (of which the aftermath now sits uncomfortably in my stomach), it seemed to work.  The patties kept some sort of form, and so, in a rush, I decide to make the "patties" large-meatball-sized.  As you probably guessed, or may not have, the butternut squash didn't cook all the way through, and we were left eating some pretty crunchy centres.  GROSS.

And of course, like a good little Asian in not wasting food, I'm still fighting through the mix, having made smaller patties around the size of a Toonie (the $2 coin), I plan to fry them up maybe for tomorrow's breakfast, with better results.  

Not ready to throw in the towel just yet.

On another day, I'll tell you all about the difference in food perspectives in this house and how they can spiral into cultural crises.  Sigh.

Interesting things from the Thursday Globe and Mail's Social Studies section

Listen to your clothes

“High-tech clothing with embedded biosensors and an Internet connection could respond to your mood and help you get through the day,” Michelle Bryner reports for LiveScience. “The new ‘smart’ clothing contains wireless biosensors that measure heart rate and temperature (among other physiological indicators), small speakers and other electronics that wirelessly connect to a handheld smartphone or PDA. Data from the sensors [are] sent to the handheld where it is converted into one of 16 emotional states, which cues a previously set-up database to send the wearer some inspirational message. … The sounds, photos and videos sent to the wearer aren’t arbitrary. Instead, the messages are spoken by a friend or loved one. ‘When you first wear the garment, you turn on the device and you tell it what person you want to channel that day,’ said Barbara Layne, professor at Concordia University and co-developer of the garments. ‘That could be your lover who’s away, it could be your deceased parent, your best friend, whoever you want to be with that day.’ ”

Heartbroken guys

“Contrary to popular belief, the ups and downs of romantic relationships have a greater effect on the mental health of young men than women, according to a new study by a Wake Forest University sociology professor,” ScienceDaily.com reports. Even though men sometimes try to present a tough face, unhappy romances take a greater emotional toll on them, says Robin Simon, co-author of the study, which is published in the June issue of the Journal of Health and Social Behavior. “The researchers also found that men get greater emotional benefits from the positive aspects of an ongoing romantic relationship. … [Dr.] Simon suggests a possible explanation for the findings: For young men, their romantic partners are often their primary source of intimacy – in contrast to young women, who are more likely to have close relationships with family and friends. … She also explains how men and women express emotional distress in different ways. ‘Women express emotional distress with depression while men express emotional distress with substance problems,’ [Dr.] Simon says.”

Off-season bargains

Some U.S. schools are taking measures to stay competitive during a recession, United Press International reports. “At least a dozen private and public colleges are bringing in extra revenue by offering summer school classes with lower tuition than during the regular school year, USA Today reports. … Jenna LaPlace of Bainbridge, Ohio, says she’s saving $1,560 [U.S.] by taking animal physiology at Hiram College this summer rather than during the regular school term when it costs 40 per cent more. … For the second summer in a row, St. Peter’s College in New Jersey is offering a ‘buy-one-and-get-the-second-for-half-price’ deal on summer school courses.”

Don’t dwell on the present

The weeklong celebration of the Facts & Arguments page, cultural landmark though it is, may strike some readers as excessive and unhealthy. Not so. Back in 2006 – those were the good old days – Marina Krakovsky had this to say in Psychology Today: “Despite nostalgia’s bittersweet rap and the oft-heard advice to live in the moment, recent studies suggest that the occasional detour down memory lane can give your spirits a significant lift. Thinking of good memories for just 20 minutes a day can make people more cheerful than they were the week before and happier than if they think of their current lives, report researchers from Loyola University in Chicago.”

Feeling grumpy 'is good for you'

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8339647.stm

For Better: The Science of a Good Marriage

For Better: The Science of a Good Marriage by Tara Parker-Pope is the book I just raced through.  I'm not very good at reading non-fiction since I don't retain the information as well as I do with something fluffy that I read in just one go.


I would recommend this book for newlyweds, pregnant couples and people who have a rocky marriage.  I think it caters to people who would question aspects of their marriage, rather than those who have settled into one and seem fine.  Then again, I know a couple that seems to just co-exist, and that's how they work things out between themselves.  


I was first attracted to this book because when I can, I like reading the New York Times, and Tara Parker-Pope is a regular columnist.  She had written something in an article that struck a chord, and so I hunted down her book.


So here are some of the interesting things I learnt and want to share with you before I race it back to the library (see earlier post).  Note that I'm just sharing my notes with you, but I've read the book.  If you read these notes and then quote them to someone else, you're probably taking things out of context.

• Divorce rates aren't going up, they're actually going down, for a variety of reasons.
• One doctor is quoted as saying: "What I find so disturbing about this 50% divorce rate idea is that people aren't forming the right expectations about marriage.  The 50% number makes people think, 'Will my kids be raised in a divorced household?  Will I end up a single mom?' I think in terms of planning for the future, it's useful to understand what really happens in your peer group."
• Phoebe's lobster story in Friends isn't true.  Lobsters don't mate for life, it's more like two weeks.  The writers should have used the prairie vole as the example.
• Birth control pills might actually lead a woman to choose a mate that's genetically unsuitable for her.  The idea is that you're a better match with someone who has different major histocompatibility complex (MHC) genes from you.  Birth control pills trick your body into thinking you're pregnant, so your instinct for different MHC genes goes dormant. [It's an interesting chapter on tests that required smelling sweaty t-shirts.]
• A man's olfactory senses appear to guide him toward a woman who is primed to conceive.  [Interesting section on how strippers make more money when ovulating.]
• There's no excuse for not having time for sex because if you were having an affair, you'd make time for that.
• Women don't need sex when breastfeeding because they're tired and getting all the cuddly hormones from the contact with the baby.
• Holding hands with your wife can relieve tension and stress, particularly through traumatic experiences.
• How you tell your "how we met" story says a lot about your marriage.
• Jazz lovers are 30% more sexually active than other people.
• Obesity in a marriage can be contagious.
• Wives are like "gatekeepers" of family health.
• There's a good chapter about how sleep and snoring and separate bedrooms have an effect on marriage.
• You need friends.  Heterosexual men tend to say that their wife is their best friend or their only friend.
• Husbands should take a long parenting class with their wives.

I'm still not happy with this layout, but I'm doing other stuff in the meantime

I actually got several things checked off my to-do list today, which is rather phenomenal since I've spent the last few days as an uncreative slug.  I shouldn't admit that ... but here's the truth: when you work from home as a freelancer (not as a person who just happens to work from home), you have waves of creativity.  I pumped out two spec scripts* and then got pooped out.  I'm waiting for my next contract to be lined up, and there's a meeting this week for another potential project.

(* spec scripts are original scripts written by writers to provide a sample of their work using existing shows.  For example, if you wanted to work for a preschool series, you could provide a spec script of a Sesame Street episode that you wrote.)

Two of my main goals today were to 

a) digitize recipes from a cookbook that I intend to buy anyway.  I just didn't feel like spending the full $39+ it takes to get free shipping today.

b) finish reading this book that's due today at the library.  I'm ultra frugal and was so wanting to say that I managed to use the library out here without ever getting a library fine, but alas, that resolution has been broken already.  $4 later ... and now I'm racing through a non-fiction book laden with facts.  (See the review that's probably above.)

On a delightfully culinary note: I made a delicious dinner last night for about $6 that makes about 4 meals, or serves 4, since hubby had to work late again last night.

$2 - half jar of pesto

$1 - half 900 g bag of pasta (shells)

$0.75 - bunches of fresh spinach

$2 - two frozen salmon portions

$0.15 - sprinkling of Parmesan cheese - I'm guessing $0.15 since it's a big bottle

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$5.90 (approximately ... when you account for taxes, etc.)

I'm back!

Hello all!

So if you're reading this, you've either stumbled upon my blog, or arrived here because I've posted something cool and put a link somewhere else.

I'm currently in the process of moving the site over to this format, since Google Ads refused to acknowledge my previous site.  I don't blame them, because it looked had some weird format and text wasn't appearing, so there'd be no way for the text spiders to find any key words.

Anyhow ... more to come.  Good night!