Moosewood!

Growing up, I knew instinctually that there were two kinds of people in this world: normal people and vegetarians. I also knew without asking that the vegetarian existed in an unholy realm no Wagner should ever dare enter. Just as children of strict Catholic parents know they risk disinheritance if they leave the church, I knew that becoming a vegetarian might create an insurmountable schism between myself and my father.

And yet, I felt pulled to it. Like a theater-loving boy in small-town Texas checking out Sondheim scores at the library, I used my library card to access the stuff of temptation. I found secret treasures in the cookbook section. An illicit thrill prickled up my spine the day I brought home my first vegetarian cookbook, but I was able to hide the titillating vegetarian nature of the recipes from my family, for I had found an ethnic cookbook, charming all of us with exotic ingredients from faraway places. I'd found Sundays at Moosewood Restaurant, and it proved to be a gateway drug. It took me a while, but I found my way to become an herbivore.

Now, almost twenty years later, I've been revisiting the Moosewood collection of cookbooks. I've made something out of almost every cookbook they've written, and Sundays remains a favorite. The past three weeks, I've made almost nothing that wasn't a Moosewood recipe (or at least, Moosewood-inspired. If you've read this blog before, you know I can't stick to a recipe for love or money). I'm happy to say that we've eaten like kings.

Vegetarian kings. My dad would laugh his butt off at the thought.

Main dish salads (Sumptuous Saturdays)

Okay, it's time for another Sumptuous Saturday food discussion. This is a little harder than usual today because we really slacked on the healthy eating front. Breakfast was Potatoes O'Brien and scrambled eggs, and then we had a really late lunch/early dinner of cheese pizza. Yep. Junk-liscious day.

On the other hand, tomorrow we'll be back to our normal eating habits. Sundays are our grocery shopping day, so we stock up on all our favorite nibbles. What is it about having fresh food in the house to stoke your cooking fire?

Anyway, tomorrow will probably be a main dish salad kind of dinner, and I think we'll be revisiting the Bok Choy Chik'n Salad. It's easy, because I use faux chicken nuggets as a protein source and the "dressing" is easy to whip together out of *gasp* the Oriental top ramen seasoning packet, a dash of sesame oil and lots of apple cider vinegar. I like to throw in plenty of little orange pieces to round out the flavors. It will still be junk food, but when the junk food makes us demolish an entire bunch of bok choy (I also add spinach or romaine to bulk it up a little) in one meal, I don't feel so bad about it.

In fact, we've been eating a lot of main dish salads that use junk food to dress up our greens. A couple of weeks ago, I made falafel balls (baked, not fried!) to top a spinach & romaine salad tossed with blue cheese and ranch dressing (dilute the ranch dressing with vinegar or fat-free buttermilk, and it stops being such a fat nightmare without compromising the delicious junk-food-y flavor). And Taco Salad with soy "ground beef" and tostada shells doesn't seem so bad when you pile on the spinach, cabbage and romaine--and heaps of fresh salsa.

So I guess you've found me out. I looooove salads for dinner. They just need to be laced with delicious junk food.

Sumptuous Saturdays

One of the things I've always tried to include in this blog is a lot of talk about food. After all, I'm a recovering foodie, so I find myself blathering on and on about my favorites quite often. But this year I'm taking a different tack. I'm giving myself a more focused blogging schedule these days (after all, I've got a lot of writing to do over at Horror-Web!), and I've decided that Saturday will be my food-post day. With any luck, I should have lots of new recipes coming your way!

Today I just want to take a moment to talk about cruciferous vegetables. These nutritional powerhouses are among the most widely hated veggies and if you're not eating them, you're missing out. Study after study shows that the brassica family (that's the botanic family name for the cruciferous vegetable group) provides some the strongest protection against cancer you can eat. Cruciferous veggies can also help regulate estrogen levels and contain nutrients that protect against macular degeneration. So for your own sake, get busy learning to appreciate good old broccoli, cabbage, kale, cauliflower, brussels sprouts and bok choy! (Mustard, turnip & collard greens are also part of the family, as well as arugula, kohlrabi and radishes.)

I have to confess that we eat brassicas almost every day in our house, only occasionally passing them over in favor of the chicories (romaine and endive are favorites) or spinach. I am pretty hard-core about eating green stuff. Days with nothing green make me droopy. But this year has been extra-great for us. We've begun using bok choy as a salad green, braising brussels sprouts, and roasting broccoli. Last week we went through *5 pounds* of broccoli and two bunches of bok choy, not to mention romaine and a big bag of spinach. It was one of our healthiest weeks ever.

You can do it, too. Try using bok choy as a salad green--just cut out the big white ribs and mince them separately. Then stack the green leafy pieces, roll and cut en chiffonade (that's in little leaf ribbons). We used our bok choy in a delicious Chinese-Chicken-style salad (with fake chicken, of course), delicious tangerine bits and some dried cranberries. Even the kid loved it!

Chocolate chickpea cake part deux

I want to be clear on something here. I am not an exceptionally good or nice person. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I have morals and I try to be decent, but I am more lazy than I am good. So it's not very often when I get to shine up my halo, and it's all because of that chocolate chickpea cake.

While the cake didn't turn out as luxuriously truffle-ish as the last time I made it (okay, I should have listened to Fiona when she was like "Take the cake out of the oven, Mom. NOW."), it was still acceptable, if a titch dry in the corners. With enough strawberries and whipped cream, dry can be managed. Everyone who tried the cake seemed to like it, and our gluten-free ZS member took seconds. Hooray! I didn't even know if the guy liked cake, or chocolate, but since this is one of the few cakes I really like, I felt like I needed to bring it out for him.

But the good part happened just a few minutes ago. I remembered that my neighbor was just recently diagnosed with gluten intolerance, and that she and her family were struggling with it. And lightning struck! I had a lot of cake left (that's what happens when the family 5 you're planning to fete at a baby shower misses the event), and I knew I would probably gobble it all up if I kept it around. So I took half of it to the neighbor's house!

Her husband answered the door and called her over with a "Honey! Gluten-free cake!" And I swear I have never seen a hand move so fast or eyes shine so brightly. Her kids had come home from something that night eating cookies and she was really suffering. That cake saved the day.

I went home happy, my dusty halo gleaming over my head.

Chocolate chickpea cake and romaine salad

Reading: the Willamette Week drink guide
Writing: hopefully, yes
Coffee units: 1. God, that needs to change!
Notable nibbles: apple slice with cinnamon

I just want to point out that those questions are much harder at 10 in the morning. Normally I wouldn't be blogging until at least 7 pm, but today, I had a thought on my trip home from the grocery store.

Tomorrow we're going to a potluck, and I planned to bring healthier choices--one of my friends just had a heart attack, and I don't want to tempt him with anything too decadent. (As if I could tempt this guy--I just learned he used to chef for a 4-star restaurant. Not that I'm worried or anything.) So I picked up some salad ingredients and stuff for that amazing chocolate chickpea cake that rocked our world last month, and somehow or other, walking along in the sunshine, I started imagining just how my world premier appearance on Oprah would proceed.

OPRAH: Here's Wendy Wagner, writer, mom and all-around amazingly cute woman. Wendy, I understand that you successfully lost 60 pounds a few years ago and have kept it off. What's your secret?

ME: I think first you have to recognize that you have to love yourself, and you can't be too hard on yourself. (Patting fat rolls) I'm still no super-model, Oprah! (laughter) But I think the first rule of success is simple.

OPRAH: Please, share it with our studio audience and folks at home.

ME: You just have to say, "No! You can NOT have that cookie!" No matter what. It doesn't matter if you walked 5 miles or haven't eaten anything all day. Cookies are evil.

OPRAH: Ohhh, that's deep. Don't you agree, folks? (crowd cheers) Do you have any other advice, Wendy?

ME: Well, if you really want the pounds to come off, you can step things up with rule #2: "If that has cheese on it, it's not going in my mouth." Yeah, that'll do it every time. Cheese makes cookies look like innocent girl scouts. It's pure fat.

(crowd cheers louder; Oprah wipes a tear from her cheek. I smile and wave--)

Anyway, before I could step into Oprah's arms for a soul-to-soul hug, I nearly got hit by a minivan and I stopped daydreaming. But I guess that's how I lost 60 pounds in a year and kept it off. I could stand to lose another twenty, but there's no way in the world I'm cutting out pie.

Eat to live

So I started reading a book called Eat to Live, by Joel Fuhrman, MD. Susan, over on fatfreevegan.com, has mentioned his stuff a number of times, and her recipes often draw on his work. I finally broke down and got the book from the library.

The funny thing about this book is that all the nutritional information lines up with a book I read last year called The Sun Food Diet Success System, by David Wolfe. Now this was one of the most fascinating book I have ever read. A combination of in-depth nutritional research, surfer/hippy stories, bizarre spiritual poems and recipes, all combined in the ugliest design you'll see on a book shelf (although the new edition looks pretty, the old one was green with Greek-ish clip art). Fuhrman bills himself as a mainstream weight-loss and heart health guy; Wolfe presents himself as a far-out guru.

But their information is fascinating and I think accurate. They are both advising to people to make raw greens the majority of their diet, because that is the best way to get your protein, vitamins and minerals. Yes, that's right: protein. For every 100 calories of romaine lettuce, you get 11.6 grams of protein. For every 100 calories of top sirloin, 5.4. Of course, 100 calories of romaine is like an entire pound of romaine, but that's an entirely different story...

Well, I just realized that bedtime is calling and I didn't do an of the "real" work I planned to do tonight. You know, that real writing stuff I try to squeeze in around my glamorous regular life. Crap. But what the heck--at least I started my third novel today!